Twitter's Chirp: Live blog

Lakme Fashion Week Day 3 (March '10) - The Review

Day 3 at LFW Mumbai
The collection had an easy comfortable feel with chanderis, striped cottons and silks which were embellished with appliqués and resham work.

Fine, I copied that from some news article. But I thought the collections were quite good too. So was the accompanying music that played as the models walked the ramp. While I took about a half hour to get inside the hall and find my seat, the show lasted 19m 25s.
The event title said Summer Edition, but I think they were only referring to the time of the year, rather than the clothes the models were wearing.
Notable among the women's wear was a purplish gown-like kimono thing with a big pouch near the sleeve, most likely placed there to hold your mobile or iPod. Men were wearing the same stuff, but with an extra hand bag over their shoulders. Storage space was the theme for this collection, if I were to guess. If you are a gadget geek or you do grocery buying a lot, this collection is a must have. Many models also had paint on their face, but that is probably optional.
Among other work that was presented, themes included free-spirited people. Sure, they all wore uncomfortable looking pants and were clearly instructed to walk in the same jumpy way, but that doesn't imply anything.
The crowd also looked knowledgeable, with a lot of them making intelligent remarks to their companions as models walked by. The more serious ones like me even had lengthy after-show discussions in the lounge.
In all, it was a good outing for me, the first of my hopefully many visits to these shows.

Why the IPL is good for India's economy

This is a repost of an article I originally wrote on Random Bakar (You should definitely check this blog out!)

So is the IPL good for India's economy?

Who the hell knows. But that shouldn't be a reason for not talking about it. The first rule of bakar is that it is good. The second rule is, the more you do it the better it gets. Having established these fundamental tenets of bakardom, lets move on.

This episode took place during the 40 odd days before the recently concluded IPL.

A raging issue was plaguing most intellectually vacant minds. Is the IPL good for India's economy? Why or why not?

Most experts reached the consensus that the IPL makes a lot of money. Not much confusion there. Its when they tried to figure out how exactly all this money gets distributed that all hell broke loose. These experts presented highly varied opinions on this matter ranging from insightful ones like "the IPL induces spending by the people, which is a good thing for the economy" to supremely insightful ones like "What money? I haven't made any money" to mind-blowing, world-changing ones like "Chumba Wumba Ola Ho". A lot of these opinions were presented in blog posts in the blogosphere (where else) and helped Google make more money on ads. But this did nothing to dissolve the uncertainty in the air. Does anyone care? Will someone find a way out?

They didn't. But nobody was disappointed. Here, finally, was a topic to argue about and it was not going to be snatched away by some smart ass who solved the issue just to appear smart (many believe this is also the reason why the Bermuda Triangle mystery, the Area 51 controversy, life on Mars, the falling of the great jibblets and many such unsolved issues have remained unsolved to this day).

Then, all of a sudden, it was decided by the country's leadership that the IPL will, in fact, be held outside India for security reasons, thereby bringing a rather abrupt halt to the all the intellectually stimulating bakardom. It seemed to be a hopeless situation to many. Some even posted emails entirely in capital letters to express extreme anger over such callous behavior by the Government. Just when the law and order situation seemed to be spiralling out of control, a smart ass showed up (the same smart ass who didn't bother to solve the original issue). His suggestion was as simple as it was elegant. It was also short. "Lets discuss why the IPL is good for South Africa's economy", he said.

It took a while to sink into everyone's head. But when it did, there was joy again. The sky was blue again, the birds chirping, there was bakar on everybody's lips and the world was a better place.

Until...(to be contd.)

Leaving Joka

This is it. Tomorrow, I will be leaving Joka, after two very interesting and instructive years at IIM Calcutta. I always believed that there are two parameters by which to judge your time spent at a place: a) How much did you learn b) How much fun did you have in the process
And on both counts, I must say that my 2 years amidst the lakes of Joka was time spent well...very well.

Ok, let me clear any confusion regarding the 'learning' part. When I say I did a lot of it, I don't mean to suggest that I was honor roll material. So if you are giggling, shut up. A perspective on how the corporate world works is something I was seriously lacking earlier and I can say with reasonable sincerety that I gained it here.
The contrast between my earlier engineering course and the MBA here is huuuge! Well yeah that's obvious, but I really had no idea of the magnitude of difference till I experienced it. Together, they are almost mutually exclusive, but are collectively exhaustive (This is a good thing, if you were wondering. Its a phrase I picked up here and I intend to use it a lot!).

Then, the fun part. Let this be clear. People at this institute GET what having fun means, like no other b-school in the country. And I mean, NO other b-school.
In this regard, IIMC is probably the only IIM that compares to IIT Bombay. Being a part of the college music band here was a great new experience. I'll dearly miss JBS BaroC and will be on the look out for even the tiniest opportunity to perform again with this highly talented bunch of musicians. The various traditions here, silly as they sound at first, have each left me asking for more. Kaun, World War, GGP, JBS nights, IIMC-XLRI meet, ManGames Puja, CAMS, YACSM...the list is endless. Basically, top notch fun!

I thought I'll write one blog entry before I leave. I thought it would end up being much longer, but I am really sleepy and have to pack. So that's about it.
It is rather unlikely that I will be a student again, though I wouldn't mind it one bit, if I do:D
Till then, I have memories of two great institutes to reminisce :)

This fortune-teller thing is going too far!

Recently, I came across a TOI article that went, "Did you know that your birth date, mobile number and ATM pin are the key to your present and your future too?"
Actually, I didn't know that. Maybe because I am not a regular TOI reader. Or, maybe because its a spectacular load of bull. But turns out, there is quite a big chunk of people who buy this kind of thing. For that matter, notice how confident the author himself is. He makes it sound like "Did you know the earth goes round the sun" or something.

Now, I never really cared for the whole "lines-on-your-palm, stars-in-the-sky, leaves-in-the-tea" domain of pseudo-scientific bunk. But after reading the aforementioned article, I am gladly willing to back-off a bit. The bar for jaw-dropping stupidity has been raised...yet again.
I don't want to be rude or anything, but there are people who actually believe their phone numbers and birth dates can tell them things about their present and future? That is some really powerful stupid.
And its funny, because these people are sane enough to be able to use a mobile or an ATM in the first place. But the instant they discover something out there with claims of future-telling abilities, they seem to regress to some kind of ape-like beings with low cerebral development. I wonder if it even occurs to them that the decimal system was a historical choice (believed to have been made mainly because of the 10 fingers - wiki says this too).

Maybe, I can understand the behaviour to a certain extent, because people tend to throw rationality out of the window, when it comes to things seemingly out of their control. Also, its usually sufficient even if a couple of people you know, claim that it worked for them.
And the solutions offered by these 'tools of prediction' are rather tempting, aren't they. Throw in an extra letter in your name, and you'll be successful everywhere. Think of all those Bollywood movie titles with a weird arrangement of 'k's next to each other, or some 4-5 vowels in a row.

What irritates me most, though, is when the 'experts' in these fields try to pass them off as science. I can respect a guy who claims science is crap and his stuff is the real deal. He is sincere. Deranged, but sincere. But its when they show up on TV and say stuff like "Numerology has scientific reasoning and backing"... thats when I feel like throwing up.

Anyway...the point I am trying to put across is, Shubhash Ghai will never figure out how to make a good movie, if he continues to believe that titles spelt like 'Yuvvraaj' will take care of everything. In fact, if all humans thought that way, I doubt if we would've had any mobiles in the first place.

"boo-hoo, the Indian guy warned me"

I always believed that the Aussies were a tough, battle-hardened cricket unit. So when I read a news headline that said "Ponting was warned to drop charges against Bhajji", I assumed the warning was rather serious. You know, something like, "we'll ban you from all cricket if you don't" or "we'll turn you into a frog" or "we'll force you to live in Calcutta for the rest of your life".

This is what the article reports about the warning, which is an excerpt from Ponting's book:

" 'Why do we need to keep it quiet?' I asked the senior Indian cricketer. His reply had nothing to do with Harbhajan's guilt or innocence. This fellow tried to convince me it might not be worth the stress of going ahead with what might well be a prolonged legal process, " Ponting wrote.

That's...it? Saying that the legal process could be prolonged is the big "Warning"?
Why does it sound more like an assertion of a well-known fact (Sure, its not exactly a fact, because legal processes are not prolonged...they are un-ending).
Ponting, evidently was very disturbed by this conversation. He probably even had nightmares of senior Indian cricketers warning him about all kinds of unrelated stuff. Maybe Sunil Gavaskar appeared in one of them and warned him that he should learn Marathi, if he wants to play in Mumbai again (or should that be someone from the MNS)....dunno, just guessing.

Also, I am not sure if Ponting mentions this in his book, but he overcame his depression in a rather admirable way later. He landed up in India, played the IPL and made more money than he ever did in 3 months ("to hell with the sardar and the big weird guy, this is just too much money to refuse!")

Ponting was never exactly the role model for a well-behaved gentleman, but in the past, one could try and admire him for his tough, aggressive behaviour. But after this? Its not even an open, televised complaint to the press or something. He wrote it in a book titled "Captain's Diary" naively hoping that Indians wouldn't read it, thinking its someone's personal stuff.

Alright, to give the Aussies some credit, it is obvious that the BCCI bullied the ICC into dropping the whole issue. And while that may be wrong, I just can't help feeling good about it. When was the last time Indians bullied anybody? And to think they actually bullied the World's governing body for cricket? Sorry, but I am just going to enjoy that feeling for a few years.

There's so much to say...

Its been a while since I posted here and I haven't been busy at all during this time. I've also had plenty of things to post about and eternal access to the internet, so the long gap is probably because I was being a lazy ass (its funny how so many things in my life can be explained by this argument alone).

By virtue of completing one year in a management program, I have earned the right to say anything I want on stuff I know nothing about, and still maintain a straight face. That was exactly what I was doing when I was explaining why food and oil prices were going up, to a taxi driver in Kolkata. With a superior, knowledge-imparting arching of my eye-brow, I was trying to explain to him how supply shocks all over the world have shot prices up. Maybe I am a brilliant teacher, I don't know, but in 5 minutes he began deducing a lot of other stuff himself. Stuff that took me 2 entire courses to learn. When you realize one day that everything you learnt takes a layman about 5 minutes of common sense to figure out, its a great feeling. Made me feel like a royal jack ass for sure.

I'll say the other things later.