Recipe for Badgered Birthday Boy

Take a human whose birthday you are celebrating. Lift him about 2 feet in air by loosely holding hands and legs. Turn him upside down. Hit him on the buttocks with slippers, sandles, shoes, kicks, and anything that you can find — either till he starts agonizing or till you feel that you have had enough. Have him blow the candles from 2 feet away and (when successful) have him cut the cake. Put him down. Smear all the delicious parts of cake on his face. Emphasize on stuffing cake into body parts like nose, hairs and ears. Special points if you rub on eye glasses and dirty his clothings. Don't forget to waste as much food as you can. Bonanza if you drench him in the water, and even more, if you hit him when wet.

I don't know about you but that's how we celebrate birthdays in IIMA.

PS: Oh yes, don't forget to shoo your guests away too. Eat what's leftover of cake.

Gunda

Few movies reach iconic proportion that Gunda (1998) commands. Movie is apt commentary on movie making of its time and its portrayal of characters and storyline in unparalleled. With 8.4 out of 10 rating on IMDB (don't miss comments), its fan don't tire of exhorting its virtues. Some samples:

Mihun's tryst with greatness. The defining moment of Indian Cinema. This movie is a must watch for anyone who speaks Hindi. More inspiring than Shawshank, with the thrill of Die Hard. Mithun manages to pack another powerful performance, only this time it is impossible to avoid rolling on the floor. And the dialogues, well, they will go down in history as adages.

no words can define this wonderful movie. Its direction, music, acting are perfect to the core. Be it its couplet laced dialogues or creative storyline or the mind-blowing performances by the greatest stalwarts of Bollywood...it is a movie worth infinite viewing. Every time you see it, you find a new meaning to the dialogues, a new dimension to the portrayal, a new perspective for research. Everyone who has watched the movie has felt an intellectual upliftment.

truly a cinematic masterpiece, gunda propels the viewer through a world of pony tailed gender confused rapists, villains spouting rhyme, prostitutes suspended in mid air and heroines with fluctuating vital statistics

Somethings that this movie portrays have never been shown before nor will be shown in future. You'd laugh till you cry when you watch this. Critics often ask unwarranted question: was laughter intended by the director or unintentional outcome? To those snobbish folks one can only say: lighten up!

There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who have seen “Gunda”. And those who shall see it — GreatBong

If you have not seen it yet, do it now. Try to be alone when you do so.

Words of a soldier

...to those who question their sacrifice. Courtesy: Rajat Mishra

How you play with us, did you ever see?
At Seven, I had decided what I wanted to be;
I would serve you to the end,
All these boundaries I would defend.

Now you make me look like a fool,
When at Seventeen and just out of school;
Went to the place where they made "men out of boys"
Lived a tough life, sacrificed a few joys

In those days, I would see my 'civilian' friends,
Living a life with the fashion trends;
Enjoying their so called "College Days"
While I sweated and bled in the sun and haze
But I never thought twice about what where or why
All I knew was when the time came, I'd be ready to do or die.

At 21 and with my commission in hand,
Under the glory of the parade and the band,
I took the oath to protect you over land, air or sea,
And make the supreme sacrifice when the need came to be.

I stood there with a sense of recognition,
But on that day I never had the premonition,
that when the time came to give me my due,
You'd just say, "What is so great that you do?"

Long back you promised a well to do life;
And when I'm away, take care of my wife.
You came and saw the hardships I live through,
And I saw you make a note or two,
And I hoped you would realise the worth of me;
but now I know you'll never be able to see

Because you only see the glorified life of mine,
Did you see the place where death looms all the time?
Did you meet the man standing guard in the snow?
The name of his newborn he does not know.
Did you meet the man whose father breathed his last?
While the sailor patrolled our seas so vast?

You still know I'll not be the one to raise my voice
I will stand tall and protect you in Punjab Himachal and Thois.

But that's just me you have in the sun and rain,
For now at Twenty Four, you make me think again;
About the decision I made, Seven years back;
Should I have chosen another life, some other track?

Will I tell my son to follow my lead?
Will I tell my son, you'll get all that you need?
This is the country you will serve
This country will give you all that you deserve?

I heard you tell the world "India is shining"
I told my men, that's a reason for us to be smiling
This is the India you and I will defend!
But tell me how long will you be able to pretend?
You go on promise all that you may,
But it's the souls of your own men you betray.

Did you read how some of our eminent citizens
Write about me and ridicule my very existence?
I ask you to please come and see what I do,
Come and have a look at what I go through
Live my life just for a day
Maybe you'll have something else to say?

I will still risk my life without a sigh
To keep your flag flying SKY high
but today I ask myself a question or two
Oh India …. Why do I still serve you?

Treehouse

Where there is a will, there is a way. Innumerable times humans have shown that to be true. Yet, it still inspires to see one more example. Meet Mr. K. P. Singh of Udaipur and watch this video (link) to see how can one coexist, literally, with trees. What I found most interesting was his innovation on water conservation. Contrary to general notion, fountain will throw too much water on you unless you open it just little.

Mirror cracking material

One of the option on Orkut for describing your looks is "mirror cracking material". I always wondered if it's extreme on positive side or negative? Is one too beautiful that mirror cracks in ecstasy or too ugly (for lack of better word) that mirror cracks in disgust? When I saw the order of options, it turns out that real meaning is later. Of course, what appears to me is that choosing this option allows people to mockingly hide their real disposition. You know, like, when you say 'I am stupid', you can be sure that people will think of you anything but stupid. What stumps me next is the necessity to both mention and hide, rather than just not mention, since answering question on look is after all voluntary. Is it attempt at being funny and/or casual?

We are, of course, assuming that one really is not that ugly. Which even if one is, one will never mention by oneself, as corroborated by absence of any profile with "large" build (body type). Interestingly "mirror cracking" beauty is funny but "large" body is not. Difference, I think, lies in the word used. If it were to be "ugly" then it will be as unfunny as "large", it's just too painful to self-describe like this, and others may trust what you say since meaning is clear. On the other hand, "mirror cracking" cannot ever literally be true, so even when it implies lower order of beauty, it is funny. If "you can sit on me" were to replace "large", I guess one will see more usage.

Demolish my school

So says a young Irish girl. Listen to her at eSnips.com.

Arbitraging shampoos

One of the key tenets of finance is that there cannot be instantaneous profit without risk (in legal fair way, of course). If that were to happen, then people will make profit and prices will adjust to eliminate the difference. The problem is that in regulated market government may forcefully distort prices to serve public interest which in turns results in arbitraging (certain instant profit) opportunities and loss of revenue to government.

Idea on this arise from an observation that 8ml sachet of Clinic Plus shampoo sells for Rs 1. while 100ml bottle for the same sells for Rs 40. Clearly for some reason company sells lower volume at lower unit price, contrary to general rule of bulkier and cheaper. Even after taking into account the shampoo wastage due to storing open sachet, sachets are cheaper. One view is that price war at lower end is driving prices down to introduce poor consumers to new product. Others say that difference is nothing more than cost saving in packaging passed on to the consumer. In either case, it is possible for a middle or upper class family to buy small packing in bulk thereby saving money, without being a target market for sachets. Further, loss from spillage and excessive use is prevented by sachet use. So, what stops market from completely switching to sachets only?

One is perhaps unawareness of the price difference. Another is usability issue with sachets. Third is simply indifference of higher end consumer on price savings (self price discrimination). Finally, prestige/image associated with use of sachets prohibit some from switching.

Readability

One of the interesting things MS Word does, after checking spellings and grammar, if you've set up right option, is to display readability statistics (See here how to set up the option). There are six of them which tell you how easy or difficult it is read a piece of text. Using average number of words in a sentence and average number of syllables in a word, two statistics numerically measure readability. Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES) is a score between 0 and 100 (most to least difficult) and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL) is average class/grade of an American student who can comfortably read the given text. FRES is expected to be around 60 and FKGL around 8 for most internet audiences. I however, find myself writing on more difficult side on both score due to my tendency to write long sentences, though I don't think I write long words on average.

My post on Horror movies scored 60.0 and 10.3 respectively, while Who can take life? scored 59.4 and 10.0. Simpler post on Power of inanities scored 69.6 and 6.3 while Of Men and Women, and Preference thereof scored 47.9 and 12.2. I get worse (better?) in Meek shall inherit the earth with 33.6 and 14.1. Jawaharlal Nehru's Tryst with Destiny, mentioned in At the stroke of midnight, even while being profound, was linguistically easy with mere 60.3 and 10.1 scores.

My academic writings score even worse and typical FRES score is 20-30 and typical FKGL is always above 12. It's all theoretical nevertheless for I've not confirmed whether one needs to be in 10th class to understand Tryst with Destiny, but it's still useful to budding writers. Plus it's fun as you see by me going overboard! Try it.

Observations from the loo

One of the common point of contention between males and females of western household is position of toilet seat - or so I am led to believe from movies, sitcoms and magazine articles. That the women of the house want seat down and men of the house want seat up is at the root of the problem. From first glance, problem is balanced since each party prefers position opposite of another. However, since women typically rule the households, default position is supposed to be seat down, and it's man's job to raise the seat, do the needful, and put it down again, failing which argument ensues. Inherent female bias in this is not hidden, but alas, not questioned either, reasons of which are related to how to deal with women and discussing these is detrimental to my potential relationships with them!

What I would like to propose is to show by simple mathematics that the best strategy for each is to leave toilet seat 'as is' after his/her work rather than leaving the seat in default position. Let's start with simple household with one man and one woman. Chances that last person to toilet was either, and next person to toilet will be either, are assumed to be fifty-fifty for simplicity. Computations can be worked out similarly for n men and m women with unequal probability of going to loo.

If no default position is set then expected workload per visit to loo is half unit. A man may either find it up, and do no work, or down, and have to raise it. He will leave is raised after use. Ditto for woman (no work for down position and one unit work for up position). Average work is half per visit with both working equally.

If either of default position (seat up or down) is set, then there is expected workload of one unit per visit. Consider seat down as default. When woman visits, there is no work required. When man visits there is two unit of work (raising, putting down) required. With half probability each, expected workload per person is one unit. However all of this is done by man.

Hence optimal rule is to leave as is after use, however generally used rule of seat down makes men do all the work. See the bias? But then, you know.

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For western style toilet, I've felt the need for smaller mini-flush for urinal purposes so as not to waste as much water as is currently used.

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And what's with vomiting/crying in bowls as they show in Hollywood movies? How can one even look into that water and bowl? Never really got my head around it. Why not use wash basins like we do here in India?

Destroying the argument

One of the nicest way to illogically destroy a counter-argument and still sound sophisticated is to append the phrase "whatever that means". Now, surely there are acceptable uses of this gem, specifically when opponents labels you with some part made-up or uncommon phrase meaning of which is not unique in general parlance. However, even there, sneer is not far behind in this phrase and rational counter argument flies out of window for a moment. Yet, most of the time I've seen usages of this tactics even with phrases that are reasonably well known or meaning of which can be found out by minimal efforts, and that too by people who I generally admire otherwise. Don't you believe - whatever that means - me?

Another is inappropriate use of double quotes to imply that your intended meaning is different from commonly accepted one or one which your opponents will use. You know I am "right", ain't I?

A "light up" or "take it easy" can often be used to disparage serious discussion on a topic by terming opponent snobbish or uptight without noticing the logic of argument. Don't find my jokes on poor kids funny? Lighten up!

And one more is to bring Hitler into picture somehow or other. By the way, did you know "Godwin's law" regarding long drawn arguments?

As...discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

PS: I am back!