The Ethical Gurus

A rather strange problem is starting to annoy me of late. Particularly when people do not know how to effectively keep off evil. What might be interesting to you may be a piece of s%^& for me and vice versa. The whole essence of democracy is, both co exist. Its wholly up to the individual to subscribe to any specific school of thought without hurting the other. But there are these whole bunch of ethical policeman, more so in the elite Indian crowd, who feels that they have to dictate terms to make others follow discipline. Discipline in itself is highly subjective which man has defined differently at different points in time. So I think I am justified in getting annoyed, when someone dictates what is "discipline" and "etiquette" and prescribing others to follow it. Dictionary.com defines etiquette as The practices and forms prescribed by social convention or by authority Its all the more annoying when the authority is used by someone who doesn't hold it.

My annoyances stem from my usage of the social email distribution lists within my company. Of course, there will be a wide variety of topics - some interesting, some irritating, some funny, some political - the best way is to choose what to read and what not to. However, there are people who often shoot back an email saying Take this discussion offline - well there is always a subject line - if you are not interested dont read it. I would like to have a discussion where I want to air my views to a lot of people and hear responses. So do the other bunch of people who reply to those. If someone finds it annoying its best to ignore it rather than dictating terms. Then there are these policeman who write Follow some etiquette, do not forward it to so many people.Well in my opinion, the whole idea of a distribution list is to address it to a wide audience. More analogical with an advertisement - if not interested, change channels. Perhaps the best ones are from other category of people who haven't come to terms with the technological advancements. For they say Bandwidth and Network Storage are precious, do not waste it. Well, in todays technological age, where webmails offer gigabytes for free, its fairly simple to set a rule and move those emails to a folder on disk. Often we find much space in our system remaining idle and not utilized and there are no costs associated with writing on them. Periodically clean them up of unwanted conversations. Infact, Outlook and I am sure most other email clients help you view contents based on conversations, making it a lot more simpler. Its best to follow simple rules rather than trying to educate others based on forced logic and made up disciplines.

It used to be a lot funnier in my earlier company, where we had newsgroups for the same. The messages were stored in a server which in no way affected any individuals bandwidth or storage. But yet there were people who did the policing. Well if you do not like something ignore it. Thats as simple an etiquette to follow and stay disciplined.

I am not forcing my etiquettes or disciplines on someone, just reiterating the fact that in a democracy, its in the best interest of all that you force etiquettes and disciplines on you so as to respect the interests of all. Its best to opt out of things so that the rest enjoy what they enjoy doing. We aren't in the days of anarchy afterall.

The Hot Web Wars....

My friend today invited me for what she called the Friday Lunch - obviously lunch on a friday, but an event for socializing and getting to know new people. So with the intention to meet new people I did oblige. Talking techonology over the lunch table is the least of my preferences. But with a few nerds working for a software major you dont expect to discuss What brought about the downfall of Sachin and Lara. Thankfully, the topic today was about the web wars launched by Google, Yahoo and MSN. Something that is atleast a lot spicier than the Channa masala that I had.

Well a lot was debated about the interface and the options that each of the players offer. One thing that can be assured from MSN is its features with the best usability experience. What once used to be the unique selling factor of GMail was the 1 GB storage. When it was introduced that was something really attractive. Hotmail back then was offering only 2 MB and Yahoo around 25 MB. So it was indeed a big deal. Infact I signed up for gmail primarily as backup so that I do not have to store local copies of important emails - which altogether will start the problem of managing and backing them up. But the big players were soon to catch up. Of course, they definitely cannot match the new comer owing to their exorbidant userbase. But yet they still managed to catch up. The whole idea is to get market share and Google had a solid business model in terms of targeted ads which fetches them revenue.

If you do searching on the web you will find - based on what most sites claim - that hotmail has a 33% share, yahoo 30% and gmail a mere 4%. The remaining being all other internet players put together. Given that Yahoo and MSN are closing in a lot of what Gmail had to offer, its highly unlikely that Google will pose any threat to MSN or Yahoo. Then why all this - because each player wnants to tap the remaining market share and of course increase revenue through their ad models.

Will all these marketing work? Does it really make sense in changing your email provider ?Well if introspect a little this is what I get. I use my email for a lot of things. It has close to 300 contacts, all my subscriptions , notices (and eBills) from my telephone, internet, cable, insurance and power companies, bank and credit card statements, notifications from my apartment community and the like. Its totally ridiculous for me to move to another provider for some minor features without which I can live, afterall they never existed until now. Even if I assume that I am going to change at all of the above places still I have a problem.Whenever I make a purchase or something I give my email address. Probably a few months down the line, I recieve an email about some promotional offer which can be of interest. So I get to loose a lot by changing my email address and its an unnecessary pain. Its as good as changing your mobile number. I find that a lot of folks here still maintain the mobile number which they subscribed when they were in University for the simple reason that its difficult to let all the people whom you know that you have changed your number. Above all, one fine morning, I get an email from this gorgeous babe from College whom I have lost touch with for almost years now saying Hi buddy heard that you are in the US please do give me a call, blah blah which was definitely possible with me sticking on to the same email ID for about a decade now. I am sure that anyone who uses email extensively like me will be in the same shoes. Hence whatever may be the features offered by the other it makes little sense to change email IDs.

Back to the same old question. Then why are companies fighting it out. As I said, its because of two factors. One, to increase their market share in the untapped segment, two, to increase revenues through ads. Perhaps Google had their innovation here in targetting customers through specific ads based on their email contents. I am not sure if MSN and Yahoo are trying to increase revenues based on a similar model. If so, then the whole of the free webmails becomes a concern.

If your email is being scanned, then the service provider virtually reads all your contents. Sometimes you do recieve important information in emails which when read and used by third parties can cause privacy concerns. Add to this that there is no guarantee that the provider will not exchange extracted information with their clients for improving their business. Right now since only Gmail follows this model and has a very small user base it hasn't caused any major concerns, but as the user base grows its soon to get into issues. If you really want to understand what kind of privacy issues may arise I suggest reading a host of articles written by Scheiner in his cryptograms.

Looking at all this, I feel I am better off retaining my hotmail account as primary. However, using and exploring other email providers helps you atleast be active in such conversations. You definitely do not want to be the odd man out in a gathering !!!

Kumble spins to 500....

The title is slightly misleading in a way because Kumble has never spins the ball - not as much as what a spinner does. Neither does he bowl it with as much as a pace as does a medium pacer. Its somewhere in between which can very well be characterized as "Kumbles the ball". Well this isn't the first time that something in cricket in characterized by the person who first used it. We already have things like "Mankaded" because Vinoo Mankad did it first. So now we can name something after this genius. Atleast after he has taken a mammoth 500 plus wickets with his kind of a bowling. So thats an addition to the cricketing terms - spin, pace and Kumble.

Kumble does not possess any genuine spin in his armory. He does not have the classic leg break of a Warne or the Doosra of a Murali, but he has perfected the art of varying the pace and bounce of the ball which makes him deadly on the subcontinental pitches. That doesn't make him only a home tiger either. He proved such notions wrong by scalping 24 wicketes in 3 tests down under, after having been in the sidelines in the first test and getting a chance only when his contemporary Bajji got injured.

A qualified mechanical engineer, Kumble made it to the Karnataka state team and subsequently to the Indian team pretty quick. However, he was soon to be dropped. But Kumble the fighter never relaxed and he came back with a stunning performance in South Africa a couple of seasons later and has never looked back since.

When the Indian team was not in its golden days, Kumble was by far the potent weapon that India had. Ripping through batting line up he was for a long time and still is a match winner for India. What really makes him a hero is the amount of hard work that he puts into his game and by his own admission tries to get a wicket every ball. Thats the kind of commitment you expect from every member in the team. But even with all his performances, he is not a hero in a country where people are more crazy after batsman. Probably Dhoni having a lot more fan following than this hero goes a long way in proving a fact that people look towards cricketers as entertainers and not as match winners in the true spirit of the game.

Nevertheless, things have not been a smooth ride for Kumble. Often for some strange reasons, better known only to the agressive and not so aggressive skippers of India, Kumble is the first choice for being axed out of the team. But the fighter has always proved himself making it tougher for the skipper to take a call. More often than not, Kumble finds a place in the team purely out of his performances in the previous match. Something that even the big stars around the globe fail to match.

Its quite a pity that someone who has more than 350 wickets in the shorter form of the game is made to sit out on the grounds of playing more agile youngsters. I probably think not playing Kumble was one of the prime factors for India loosing the world cup finals. Beyond any doubt, no other team will dare do such a thing, especially when he is part of the 15 member squad. I guess its imperative that the Indian think tank begins to think of playing genuine bowlers who can take wickets or curtail the run flow in the middle overs.

Kumble has amazed the cricketing world with quite a few stunning performances. His 6/12 which sealed the victory for India in the Hero Cup, his perfect ten which won the test against Pakistan which had the deadly duo of Wasim and Waqar, his exploits at Adelaide which won a test for India down under after a long time are some to name. Having offered so much to Indian cricket and having been the backbone of the Indian attack for well over a decade and a half I am sure the Indians are going to have a tough time having to replace someone like Kumble.

Stereotypical Tamil Cinema

I recently read this article in Sify that talks about women being potrayed in a stereotypical manner. In fact, this isn't something new to Tamil Cinema. Ever since I started watching Tamil movies, I have seen a lot of stereo types and a lot of them still remain true to this day.

1. Hero will always be poor or utmost middle class and he will only have a mom.

2. If hero is a rowdy or goonda types then he will be an orphan brought up by the villain whom he will take revenge against in the second half of the movie.

3. If heroine is a young girl then she will be very rich but she will have only a dad.

4. The young rich heroine will always be in scantily clad clothes and will be arrogant until she falls in love with the hero.

5. The hero will never get aroused by a young beautiful girl stripping next to him. He will rather advise her on our cultural values and ask her to change her behavior. If hero is a rough and tough person then he will slap her. In most of the cases either of these will be done in public, humiliating the heroine.

6. Heroine will fall in love with the hero, thinking of his advise (or slap) lying down on her bed.

7. No sooner does the heroine fall in love with our hero, lying on her bed, there will be a duet in her dreams.

8. If heroine is wife of 45+year old hero who is shown as a middle aged man, then she will be an orphan and our hero would have rescued her from a deadly situation and married her.

9. In most cases, heorines father will be a goonda and he will be the villain as well (God only knows how come such goondas get such beautiful daughters in tamil movies).

10. If the hero and heroine are caught in the middle of their affair, then they will only be caught in the middle of a paddy field. Immediately the heroines father will slap her on her face. The next shot she will fall down on her cot and start crying. The father will then beat heroines mother saying she doesn't know how to raise her daughter (now dont ask if that isn't the fathers responsibility as well).

11. If at all the heroine has to ditch the hero she will only do so because the heros life is in danger and she wants to protect him.

12. If the hero is a rowdy from the slums who is uneducated, looks horrible and is poor, then the heroine will be a college girl from a decent family, very rich, good looking and will always run behind the hero (mind you the hero wont).

13. Though hero will not get aroused with a beautiful girl standing next to him scantily dressed, but will advise her, he will dance with another scantily dressed woman in a kuthu paatu or item number (refer my previous posting for the differences).

14. If heroines father is not the villain then it will be her murai maman (maternal uncle who is supposedly the one to marry her as per customs).

Arasiyala Idhellam Sadharnamappa !!!

The latest turn of events in Tamil Nadu politics just makes me laugh. Looks like party agenda and ideologies are just for namesake and that our great leaders want victory by hook or crook. Vaiko, who until a few days back was blowing horns about the Democratic Progressive Alliance, now seems resolute that his need of the hour is to get his party "a honorable number of seats".

Until yesterday Vaiko was someone who was supposedly supporting a terrorist outfit. He was arrested by this very ADMK government for the same under POTA. Now today someone is happy about being friends with Vaiko. At one point, I was totally impressed with Jayalalitha and so were a lot of folks from different parts of India. Everyone was impressed with some of the strong measures that she took on government employees, bus drivers, etc. But alas, she turned them all back for political gains. I wouldn't blame her for the people of Tamil Nadu did not give her a single victory in the MP elections - a great part of that blame to be shared by the educated elite who do not vote but rather choose to enjoy a holiday during the election.

Having said that, its not that the other alliance is all about ideologies. Criticizing someone first and then joining hands with the same person later is something that Karunanidhi has been doing for a few decades now. Blessed with good literary skills in Tamil, he can play with words to always reason out his actions. Family politics is something that he has perfected over the ages, better than the Nehru dynasty, with clear demarcation of property - center for the Maran family and TN for the Stalin family. The one person who is against Stalin being the CM is Vaiko and now that he is out MK has already started to move his coins in the right direction.

Political parties can do something to save trees - let them not print their election manifesto - for I believe its seldom put to use. Essentially it all boils down to the arithmetic of alliances. Whoever can aggregate vote shares win. There is no basis for the alliance - its just all mutual gains. In fact India can save a lot of money if they can work out these arithmetic and declare winners, for its pretty rare that such arithmetic fail. Only makes me recollect the once famous dialogue of Goundamani - Arasiyala Idhellam Sadharnamappa !!!

Making of a Kuthu Paattu

Kuthu Paatu is something like an item number particulary targetted at the not so sophisticated audience. A kuthu paatu is an essential ingredient of any minimum guarantee movie in modern Tamil cinema. A Minimum guarantee movie is one which is taken with a bald headed fifty plus hero (like Sarath Kumar, SathyaRaj, etc) being shown as a middle aged man with the help of a lot of a makeup and who will be shown romancing with a first time heroine not more than 18 to 20 years old. These movies make their collection from the B & C centers.

Interestingly kuthu paatu is only like an item number but not an item number. The differences have to be well understood:

1. A good looking heroine/model/babe dances in an item number (Malaika Arora, Isha Koppikar, etc), someone with an ugly face but big assests and lot of flesh around their waist (Padma Priya, Gumtaj, etc) dances in a kuthu paatu .

2. The song in an item number will be good music sometimes a hit one too (Chaiya Chaiya in Dilse), the song in a kuthu paatu will have beats of only a thavil and will be good with a quarter patta saraku and oorugai (pickle).

3. In an item number the dance will be good (like Chaiyya Chaiyya in Dilse) or sometime seductive (like Kalaas in Company), in kuthu paatu the dance is only the shaking of the big assests and hips.

4. Item numbers usually will have the hero romantically dancing with the girl or some more models dancing behind (again Chaiya Chaiya in Dilse), kuthu paatu will have hero, comedian and the other unsagikables (refers to someone whom you can't bear to see paying money) along with a few shabby dressed and sweating extras jumping around the main girl (Kundrathula Koyilu Katti from Nesam).

Now that you have got all the essential differences, let me now highlight what all are required to make a kuthu paatu:
1. Song (lyrics)
2. Music
3. Main kuthu girl
4. Some side actors
5. Choreography

Once you have done the above then you can go ahead and shoot the song. Let me now walk you through some of the steps on how to create a kuthu paatu with ease. I will walk you through with an example.

It is very effective if the music and lyrics are composed together. What is essential in a kuthu paatu is the beat and not the wordings. You need to have a proper rythmic beats to keep the listeners happy.

(fast paced) Dandanakada takada takada....Dandanakada takada takada.... (imagine it being played with a tavil) (Note - there needs to be a stress in the n in Dandanaka as in Dannndanakada...)

This will be the beat which will repeat throughout the song and on which our lyrics will be based. Any other piece of music that comes in are just fillers. So now to have lyrics to go with it.

Now that we have the first piece of lyrics we need to see how to fit this into the beat that we developed. Look carefully at each word. Each of them can be split into two. At the start of the second half give a stress. Then in between each word give a small gap. Now try singing and you will see it will fit the beats. Now lets mix the beats and the lyrics and we have the first piece.

This forms the basics of our kuthu paatu. If the listeners can tap to this then the rest of the song can be made. Its just about making lyrics in the same tune. So we go and fill the lyrics up.

Now if we want we can add some music inbetween sets one and two so that the song comes for a few mins. Apart from instruments we can add some good hummings. So we add them.

(whistle)Peeeeeeeeeeeep..peep

(With whistling)Tanku chakum..Tanku chakum..Tanku chakum..Tanku chakum..Tanku chakum..

(male voice)machi...dhool kelapurama nee.....

So we are now almost done with the song. Since this is a fast paced song, we need some start. Basically it will be a set of uncorrelated lines - sung in the song by some side singer and in the movie it will be uttered by one of the extras (like "bandu bandu..." in Chinna Veeda varatuma song of Arjun). So we add that as well.

North(u) Dakotaaaa

South(u) Dakotaaaa

Innaku Night(u) Varattaaaaa

Mutham Tharattaaaaa

With all of the above the song can be recorded.

There is no dearth of actresses (who satisfy the conditions in the points 1-4 above) and the extra dancers from whom you can choose your cast.

And now for the last part - Choreography. This is perhaps the easiest. The girl has to shake her chest and hips. Make sure that she wears a tight and low cut blouse and that the flesh around her waist along with her navel is visible. The rest on screen can simply jump.

Mix everything together and you have your minimum gaurantee kuthu paatu.

Timepass at Steven's Pass

Hobbies - Skiing, mountain climbing and scuba diving.

Something like this in the hobbies column of your blog gives an impression that you are one of a freaky kind. I always wanted to do something adventerous like this. Eventually I got a chance to experiment with one of these and only then did I realize that these aren't as easy as they look. Rather a day at the mountains has really drained me off.

It all started with our division wanting to celebrate the successful launch of a few products and so the VP announced that Feb 28 will be a ski day at Stevens Pass. I was delightfully looking forward to the day. So were the other poor folks who were also first timers.

I know that its going to be bizzarely cold in the snow out there. So I wore thermal inners, a thick jeans, a woolean sweat shirt and a jacket which can withstand snow. Thinking I am smart enough to dress for the occasion, I drove down to office. When I got down from the car I saw this tall hefty man walk past me with a pair of leather gloves.

"Oops...Why am I so stupid !!! How on earth did I miss my gloves !!!" Well and it was too late for me to go and fetch them from home.

Then when I walked out a found a whole lot of people in their snow coats and skiing trousers. For a moment I thought I was out of place but my jacket which resembled a snow coat saved me some grace. At this point I realized something. Your fellow desis will never let you down. I saw a bunch of desi guys who had first timers written all over them, walking by. I can already hear one of them say Areh yaar..bahuth tand lah rahi hey. I thougth to myself "If these fellows find this cold, I am sure they are going to freeze in the mountains. I am much better!!!"

Then the long two hour journey to Steven's pass started by bus

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No sooner than we got down from the bus we were directed to go and pick up our rental equipments. It was snowing slightly and "Oh God here I am again without a cap or a hood". Then this babe comes and asks me

"First time in snow"

"Not really, I am pretty used to this"

"Oh...so you are so used that you can walk without a cap is it great"

(Me didn't want to act too much)

"Well its just with a friend of mine in his bag, just got to go and grab it"

In order to save myself, I went and bought one - at an expensive price.

Then went to pick up the equipments.

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The equipments given to us consisted of a pair of ski boots, a pair of skis with bindings on them and a pair of ski poles. Anything else like ski coats, helmets, goggles,etc was left to the individual to take care of.

The ski boots were awesome. You can do all your free weights exercises that you do at the gym at home if you have a pair of these ski boots. Trust me they were as heavy as a rock. The boots will hold you tight up to half your knee height and so you just can't move your ankle. Walking in them makes you feel as if you are a robot. But then slowly I got used to it. I then rented ski coats and trousers and it took a whole damn hour to get set up.

There were some lessons offered. I realized I wasn't the odd one out for there was too many people taking it - doing this for the first time.

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The initial skiing on a flat surface was pretty simple. But then when we got into tricks on how to climb up a slope, climb down a slope, slow down etc is when I learnt how hard it is. Back when I was learning physics in high school there used to be problems that talked about frictionless surfaces. Well the skiing surface probably came pretty close.

Everytime I tried to slow down or take a turn while skiing down hill I fell down. Standing up isn't an easy thing to do with those rocks restricking anny ankle movements. It requires an amazing amount of skill to turn around and get up with all those equipments on you. It is also a good test of whether you are starting to put on weight. For if you can't bend, hold your toes and get up you will have to remain on the ice. If you have excess fat on your belly, then you probably can't do this - made me realize that French fries and chocolates aren't all that good for the body.

Then I learnt a technique where I can remove one ski and get up. This wasn't easy either for as soon as you get up you will ski down with the other ski and fall again. So after a lot of effort the first thing I perfected is - how to get up when I fall down.

They taught us how to fall down without crashing into others and with little injuries to your body. Still It wasn't all that pleasing to fall down for it really hurted - excepting once when I fell down because this gorgeous babe skiing beside happened to crash into me. Thunbathilum inbam.

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At the end of the day when we were about to wind up, I finally managed to ski downhill without falling off. Did it a couple of times and left the place a contended man. Now when this Bandha Paramasivam (general name given to any guy who just drives an aeroplane by his mouth) caught me over chat from Bangalore I could say Well buddy I was chilling out in the mountains doing some skiing. Had a good nights sleep and until I got up from bed this morning did not know so many body parts existed for it was paining like hell.