Roopinder Singh writes....

Cooking up a story

I can’t cook to save my life, though I love food and like to experiment with various cuisines. Indian Takeaway was a title that intrigued me and as I read it, I enjoyed it, which was reason enough to review the book by Glasgow-born Hardeep Singh Kohli. He writes well, is funny and I liked his idea of cooking western food in India while travelling around.

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2 number ka maal

Nimbu Pani

Blog on, blokes!

Baton for the Marshal

Obvious, non-empirically

Obama’s cyber style

Aradhika Sharma writes....

Sitting, sitting, bum is paining…
I believe that we’re all familiar
With the situation I’ll be describing
Not too sure however about
The remedy I’ll be prescribing
Not sure in fact if remedy there is any
When sitting begets us only
Aches n pains in our sweet fanny!
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Frogs and Snails and Puppy dog Tails..

Forwards in my mailbox!

Nautch Girls of the Raj

An Ode to Beer!

Arvind Krishna writes....

How tweet it is

Suddenly the Twitter ‘bitters’ or bashers seem to have disappeared and a wave of goodwill and seriousness has come around Twitter. This doesn’t mean that you have to like Twitter, or even feel guilty about pining for an earlier, simpler, pre-Twitter world. It simply means that anyone who ignores the vast socioeconomic impact that Twitter is already having around the world risks going the way of the luddites.
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Philanthropy in hard times

Rukh

Looking Back

Capt S Seshadri writes....

SOUTH OF THE ADYAR RIVER

Oh for the days of my youth! Misspent, no doubt, but happy nevertheless. The days when Chennai was Madras to us and Pattinam to the old folks. When we had two grandmothers, a great grandmother and a host of great aunts to spoil us with thengai burfis! When cars meant Morris Minors, Ford Prefects and Landmasters!

It was the mid 60s and we were one of the first few residents of what was then Urur village. I distinctly remember the evening when we assembled and sat on the earthen floor outside what is now the Shastri Nagar Ladies’ Association, and some dignitary, whose name escapes me, declared the changed name of our locality to Shastri Nagar after our then Prime Minister. Or even earlier, when we heard the news of Pandit Nehru’s death over our ‘Telerad’. Our radio was one of the biggest in the colony and a bunch of us would gather round it of an evening to listen to the news or crowd round on a holiday to hear V.K. Chakrapani and Vizzy comment on Test cricket.

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Shoe-shoe, shoo shoo

A hero will lead us

Banned girl, Bond boy


The Return of the Gladiator

Seminar Siesta

These days one is subjected to all kinds of seminars and conferences for reasons still unknown. Either one has to sit on the stage and speak on a subject which only remotely resembles an area of one’s interest, or one has to sit in the audience and nod one’s head vigorously as if one has never heard more truthful tales being told before in one’s life. Both experiences have their own story to tell, and hilarious situations often arise.
What happens is that speakers typically blow their own trumpet with unabashed aplomb. After a while, the high and mighty speaker gets offended at the crowd’s obvious lack of interest, as the onlookers gossip with the neighbour or look around at good looking targets. After receiving a chiding from our ‘trumpeter’, people do settle down for a while, only to drift into the realm of distraction again.
Having had to put up with such unending verbosity on numerous occasions, one tries to rush through one’s own talk, for two reasons. Firstly, one has very little to say and secondly, it is often past lunch time and the gastric juices have commenced their protest march!
Post-lunch there is another story to tell, as one usually finds oneself seated in a seminar hall which is half empty. The aforementioned gastric juices have given way to somnambulant tendencies and the frequency of delegates snoozing off is quite high! In fact, except the main organiser and his accomplices, few other dedicated souls appear to be interested in goings- on.
A recent event that one happened to attend highlighted these dozy trends like no other. The lunch on offer had been really sumptuous, embellished as it was with Puris and all kinds of Halwas. The audience was mostly middle-aged, and the opening speaker of the post-lunch session was not exactly India’s greatest orator. He actually managed to plunge proceedings to levels of boredom hitherto undiscovered.
This combination of factors was so compelling, and the chair which one occupied was so cushy that one couldn’t help catching some shut-eye either!
My pleasant siesta was rudely interrupted however by loud shouting from the stage. Our champion sleep- inducer had perceived finally that no one was exactly thrilled-to-bits while listening to him. He was so peeved by the fact that almost all of his audience was fast asleep, that he became quite violent with his language and he made no secret of his utmost displeasure! This unprecedented dressing-down had the desired effect, and every one including yours truly was soon perched on the edge of the aforementioned cushy seats, a position we maintained till the very end of the session. It seemed as if we were all watching a 20-20 humdinger!
That scary episode notwithstanding, one is seriously thinking of writing to organizers of seminars that they must invite item-number- specialists to perform on stage along with the speakers, or else add siesta- time to the official schedule!

Obama’s cyber style

by Roopinder Singh

While people were looking for sartorial clues by checking out Michel Obama’s dress at her husband’s inauguration and subsequent balls, cyber junkies like me were also looking for clues about change in American presidency.
A fumbled oath-taking notwithstanding, change came quickly. The White House official website, Whitehouse.gov, was launched at 12.01 pm, moments after Obama was sworn in as the 44th President, and it was quite different from the one that had been up during the tenure of President George Bush.
“One of the first changes is the White House’s new website, which will serve as a place for the President and his administration to connect with the rest of the nation and the world,” said Macon Phillips, the White House director of New Media, in his message on the site said. Please note: The White House has a person in position and his team is delivering, admittedly after a few fumbles on Day 1. Those of us who see government websites that have not been updated for years can really appreciate this efficiency.
This website is one of the many ways in which IT is being been used by the new President to address the needs of his nation. There is also a nifty form in the “Contact us” section that allows a visitor to write a short (up to 500 words) note. The site was not updated frequently enough, and lacked information, but these are just beginner’s glitches.
While Michel Obama is seen as a style icon, her husband, who cuts no mean a figure himself, is also the President who fought to keep his Blackberry smart phone, and has been seen using a Mac, as does most of his team. Metaphorically, he has been called a Mac, thereby meaning “cool”, and not without reason.
Many old-timers thought the swearing in of the 44th President of the United States of America is in itself the ultimate integration of the black community with the rest. Until it actually happened, it did not seem possible that an African-American would become the leader of the free world, as Americans like to think of their President.
However, for the tech minded, integration that Obama represented had nothing to do with his race. Most of the teeming millions who thronged Washington for the inauguration were youngsters who thought Obama represented integration of the real and virtual word through the Internet, Blackberry, etc.
Candidate Obama blazed a new trail through his website at the beginning of his campaign. At that time he was facing Hillary Clinton and it was obvious that their distinctive personalities were reflected in the kind of websites they had. Hillary’s website was authoritative and a tad ponderous; Obama’s site had freshness meaning and purpose. He was wired, and he raised record millions of dollars in contributions through his website. She was not so tech-savvy, and it appeared that the website was an afterthought in the campaign in which she became an adjunct.
Obama was all over on the Net. From the short messaging site called Twitter to FaceBook, running his blog and answering mails on his Blackberry. Net-savvy people compared his campaign site to a Mac, and Hillary’s website to a Windows, implying savvy and smart for the former and formal and staid for the latter.
Now, it turns out that when Obama team members went to the White House, they found a dearth of Macs and a number of Windows machines with dated software. This was promptly blamed for the problems in updating the White House site in nano-seconds, as promised. Certainly, Windows will be the fall guys for many other inadequacies.
It did not help Windows’ cause the “Microsoft massacre” was announced soon thereafter confirming the company would be axing 5,000 jobs. Imagine President Obama’s Daily Economic Briefing: “Sorry for being late, but the Windows machines took time, and by the way, Microsoft is axing jobs”. Not exactly the good cheer the new President is hoping to spread.
Obama’s is now at a stage where actions will have to speak louder than words. If he delivers, the cyber world is a very powerful toll to communicate his success, if not, the speed and power of denunciation of this medium is legendary. At the end of the day, people want results; the reality of life always affects its extension, the cyber world.

Vote, we must!

My Comment of the week- Vote we must!
India's democracy is the most successful experiment of organised human political endeavour in the history of the world. Just look at the numbers! The largest ever number of voters in the history of the world shall cast their vote in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls. The fact that Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are now used in the entire country makes India's electoral system the most transparent and efficient for such a large country, in the whole world. While our politicians do not normally deliver what they promise during the elections as we are all aware, at least we are able to elect them through a process that is quite free and fair. Gone are the days when booth capturing was a norm and violence was widespread. People of weaker sections were too terrified to vote, whereas now there is greater awakening and more confidence in each citizen of the country that he can vote as per his own volition and can make a difference.
Thus it becomes incumbent upon those of us who do not normally vote, to do so! We tend to feel at times that our ballot is not going to make a difference in the overall scheme of things. We feel disillusioned with the system and often mock at the results of elections. The fact remains however that very few of our brethren who are armchair critics and drawing-room debate winners, actually have the gumption to take up the cudgels for any social cause in public life. The least we can thus do is to make the effort to visit the polling booth on the day ordained, so that we can exercise our democratic right. Today we can even choose to vote against a particular candidate who we feel does not deserve to ever contest an election.
Let us hope that the forthcoming elections do not slow down the momentum that India's democracy has attained, and that we the people make the democratic process even more robust by exercising our fundamental right without fail!

Tendulkar is batting better than ever!

By Vivek Atray

Sachin Tendulkar is batting better than ever before...and that takes some doing! He has been the pre-eminent batsman of his generation, without a doubt. He has conquered, blasted, mauled and even devastated the best of bowlers in the world for the past 20 years, and he is still at it! For a batsman so dominant and breathtakingly strokeful, it is a wonder, even a miracle, that he has not only endured for so long, but has even grown better with age.
There was certainly a period in the last few years when his batting, especially in Test matches, was definitely on the wane. He seemed tentative at times, though flashes of brilliance were always on view. Injuries did not help and there were long periods when he had to keep out of cricket, thereby making a comeback of sorts many a time, not an easy task in cricket, even for the very best.
For the past two years though, and certainly as of now, Tendulkar has been delighting us again with the panache of old. His sublime centuries on tour in Australia, both in the Tests and in the ODI finals, followed by a brilliant match-winning knock in the historic Chennai Test last year against England proved that he was on song once more. The collective down turn of India's batting in Sri Lanka notwithstanding, 2008 proved to be the year when Tendulkar looked to be near his best.
In New Zealand, and one has been watching very closely, he seems so much at ease at the crease, and also with himself, that he has unraveled one magical stroke after another, with consummate ease. He has caressed the ball and he has seduced it to the boundary with such sheerness of class that Kiwi commentators (all former Test players) have often been left awestruck, dumbstruck and speechless, all at once.
In a career that has given us many a moment to relish and cherish, Sachin Tendulkar seems to be on top of his considerably spectacular game, and seems more at peace with his batting and his unending talent than he has ever been before.
Those who were chanting END-ulkar had better think again...here is a man who is likely to become the first to score a hundred international centuries...truly TON-dulkar! Bat on, Sir...we are watching with bated breath.

Obvious, non-empirically

By Roopinder Singh

WE have tremendous capability of justifying whatever wrong we have done, I told my friend, obviously scoring a point in an ongoing conversation, while at the same time losing the argument by putting him on the defensive.

Though I do not have a systematic study to buttress my contention, I can provide anecdotal evidence to support what I said, and I dare say any scientific study of “Justifying the Unjustifiable” would find that my contention is a reasonable generalisation, provided the right methodology is used and proper people selected as samples.

A news item titled “Men in flashy cars make women go weak in the knees,” said that in an experiment, psychologists at the University of Wales showed images of the same man sitting in a silver Bentley Continental, then a red Ford Fiesta, to 120 women. The women found the male sitting in that prestigious car “more attractive”. Really? Did we need science to tell us that? Guys, forget fitness, get flashy cars instead!

An earlier study in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin found that women find men with muscles more attractive. It took the scientists four years to arrive at this conclusion, though they also offered a consolation for us less muscled people-women felt that scrawny (wimpy?) men will be more faithful.

An Ohio State University study, funded by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, concluded that people who pay for cigarettes have less money. The following scientific observation was published in Tobacco Control: “While a causal relation cannot be proven, smokers appear to pay for tobacco expenditures out of income that is saved by non-smokers. Hence, reductions in smoking will boost wealth, especially among the poor.” A good tip for the IMF and World Bank in their “relentless” war on poverty.

There is a new twist to the “time is of the essence” adage. The time needed for a man to fall in love at first sight is 8.2 seconds, according to a scientific study published in the The Archives of Sexual Behavior, a journal and not a teenager’s diary. Men looked into the eyes of beautiful actresses for an average of 8.2 seconds, but that dropped to 4.5 seconds when gazing at less attractive ones. Girls, keep stopwatches handy, your future may depend on them!

National Institute of Drug Abuse Research-funded research on “Differential effects of cocaine and cocaine + alcohol on neurocognitive performance,” published in Neurology, found that two intoxicants are indeed worse than one, because they affect different brain functions. What next? A study to prove that mixing drinks gives you a hangover?

I am sure that scientists somewhere are empirically examining the obvious and gathering data about the kind of people who study studies to poke fun at them. They will certainly find that these people engage in such acts because they have nothing better to do. But, dear reader, we beat the best brains because the conclusion that they arrive at through rigorous scientific gathering of facts and brilliant deductions is something that we knew instinctively. Obviously!

The Indians are now unstoppable!

By Vivek Atray

There was a time in world cricket when losing to lowly placed New Zealand was considered sacrilege. Those were the days when Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and even Sri Lanka did not play Test matches. In fact India and New Zealand were almost always fighting for the wooden spoon.

Not much has changed today for the New Zealanders in terms of their world ranking, which still stands at eighth best in the world, but India is well on the way towards becoming the numero uno team in all forms of the game!

Notwithstanding the Indian team’s inability to force a win in the third Test at the Basin Reserve in Wellington, in match that they dominated entirely, their 1-0 win over the hapless Kiwis who were playing on home turf, has clearly underlined India’s potential to be the world’s number one team in the near future.

The Test series was so hopelessly one-sided that most pundits had predicted a 3-0 win after India’s dashing performance at Hamilton in the first encounter. Apart from three days of ascendancy at Napier in the second Test, the Kiwis looked all at sea against the marauding Indians.

Gautam Gambhir showed throughout the series that India has unearthed a rare talent in him, and that he has the ability to be the world’s very best opening batsman in all forms of the game. His marathon century at Napier to save the match followed by a brilliant 167 at Wellington underscored his amazing batting ability in different conditions and in any situation.

The old guard comprising of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman was in superb form too, and they collectively amassed almost a thousand sublime runs in the series. Tendulkar was close to his very best, and followed up his scintillating 163 in the third ODI with a magnificent 160 in the Hamilton Test to take India to their series- clinching victory. Throughout the series, he repeatedly stroked the ball to the fence off the awe-struck Kiwi bowlers with shots that were precise in their placement and truly resplendent in their glory. Dravid and Laxman were on top of their games too, with each excelling in his selected role. Laxman’s artistry resulted in outcomes that were like a painter’s masterpiece, while Dravid not only broke the world record for the most catches but also for the most century partnerships. A staggering performance by any standard!
MS Dhoni was looking more and more like a champion of champions by the end of the series. His wicket keeping was outstanding (he broke the record for most catches by an Indian keeper in an innings- six), his batting was solid and powerful, and his leadership aspiring. Harbhajan and Zaheer Khan displayed their wares with aplomb, to the obvious discomfort of the opponents. Harbhajan was in total control at Hamilton and also at Wellington, while Zaheer proved in the third Test that he is getting better and better as the years pass by.

For Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh in batting as also for Ishant Sharma and Munaf Patel in bowling, it was not the best of times. While Yuvraj played well in at least two innings, Sehwag tried to over-dominate. Sharma and Patel lacked consistency and did not bowl to a plan except in a spell or two. Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble may have been missed by the Indians to an extent, but this Indian side does not let adversity come in its way. No way!

Jesse Ryder and Ross Taylor played a couple of astonishing innings each and even skipper Daniel Vettori and Brendon Mc Cullum scored centuries to bring some cheer to the Kiwis in a series which they were lucky to come out of with a 1-0 score line.


Daniel Vettori would feel himself to be extremely fortunate to have escaped with a draw at Wellington, with eight wickets down and only he with tail-ender Iain O’Brien standing in India’s way when the rain came. Next man in Chris Martin at number 11 had not scored a run since October in any of the 23 matches he had played before this one! It was only Martin’s lofted straight drive off Harbhajan Singh in the first innings that would have given Vettori a glimmer of hope! It did not help that Ishant Sharma dropped O’Brien at backward square leg off Sachin Tendulkar (who could there by have grabbed his third wicket of the innings and sealed the win!)

India’s dashing skipper Dhoni proved to be a little less enterprising at the Basin Reserve by delaying India’s declaration by at least an hour, and has rightly been advised by Martin Crowe through his web-column to watch out for weather reports in future!
All in all the Indians have provided sufficient evidence to indicate that they have the capacity to excel in world cricket with a team that has men who are ready to put in their best efforts in each and every situation. The IPL in South Africa beckons the Indians cricketers now and then the ICC World 20-20 tournament in England. Never is there a dull moment in international cricket!

Looking Back

By Arvind Krishna

Looking back, I have often debated for myself why, having lived and worked mostly in Palo Alto, California (known for the Stanford University Campus) and in the heart of Silicon Valley for about 12 years, did I come back to my homeland about twenty years ago.
The satisfaction for my personal achievements notwithstanding, mostly professional there and social as well as family here, I am still not sure what would have given me more joy, peace and happiness and less rough-and-tumble, tension and despair in the past twenty years. It is very easy to sit on one side of a fence and think of greener pastures on the other. One can come to fast conclusions, especially in moments of anguish or frustration – and mind you – moments between them are not few and far between, especially here. In our country one has to deal with a lot of people at work with underdeveloped thinking and literary faculty, irresponsible drivers on the road with no etiquette whatsoever, ill-mannered yet very egoistical social animals which can give you lots of heartburn, heartache and hair-splitting moments. Not there is any dearth of freaks or rednecks in foreign lands either, but definitely, mostly a well groomed, civic-minded lot that one came face to face with, fortunately in my experience.
My job in running an industry in this country has not been a typically white collar one and I have had to deal with all kinds of people, mostly not very trained or skilled – even at places they are expected to be. Business ethics is a far cry from most of my customers. My experience with banks and multinationals here has also been quite disappointing, since I am an intelligent customer and they do not seem to know what customer satisfaction is. A zero defect approach or any effort towards perfection is missing, although I must commend the self-respect and toil of the poor, hardworking masses who were not fortunate enough to get proper training. Also, since I am a simple individual believing in self-service with a minimalist approach to life, I do not enjoy the luxury of having a team of servants doing my work, which is supposedly the hallmark of this country, where poor people can be exploited to your heart’s content. At a younger age when I was thinking of vocational choices, the Indian Administrative Services was seriously on my mind but now I feel I would definitely have been a misfit as a civil servant, since I would refuse to toe the line of the politically appointed bosses, would love to do my own personal work and drive my own car without any commandoes leading and following me in their gas guzzling gypsies. Oh, how much I detest this for a poor country like ours! The irony is that the government spends millions on your security and then you get mowed down by the bus driver whose record of killings is more than that of some terrorists. I must also admit that I am debating whether or not to vote in the forthcoming elections since I have come to feel that India is anything but democratic. I would say it is still an aristocracy. The only change is that the brown sahibs replaced the white ones in 1947. Leave aside any lesser literate or developed part of India, the administration of my own town is a glaring example. Barring exceptions whom I know are honest and humble to the core, it does not seem to get any better with the decadent younger generation. The security of my own family and law and order in general does become a concern for me when I see the huge properties amassed around my town conspicuously by some officers of the Indian Police Service who are supposed to take care of us with our taxed money.
Outweighing all, it’s the like-minded, good thinking people - mostly more intelligent and well read than I am, and high achievers and social and spiritual think-tanks that I have had a chance to meet, make friends and interact with in my own country and share a lot of good thoughts and great laughter with, that makes it all worthwhile for me to be here. And of course the less fortunate who have accepted my offer to cheer them in my own small way have made my living amidst them worthwhile. Their sheer grit to survive against the odds of too many people and tolerance for the growing divide between them and the arrogant, flamboyant rich has personally humbled me and taught me to count my own blessings. I find the rickshaw puller the coolest and the plight of them sleeping in the corridors touches me. I often apply my mind how I can bring about a change for the better in their lives. I am also a proud yet often a lone ranger in my effort to educate young people about social responsibility, civic sense, discipline and ecology. I had thought I might be able to start a movement on family planning but I gave up. One major personal satisfaction - I could not have raised my two children in any better way than I have in this country. I am proud of them and my country’s value system for that. It is another story that they were sent to foreign lands on my insistence for higher education to give them a chance to excel in their professions and also to let them experience the dignity of labour and hard work and where luck has little chance! They were taught much to love their own country but it will be for them to decide where to live. Unlike me, they have a father who is not going to falsely influence them to be “first class citizens” of a “second class country” or even the other way around. They just have to become first class human beings and try and make the whole world a better place, wherever they live.
Recently I felt that I was not evolving enough and life was passing me by, so I started looking back and decided to pen my thoughts. Meanwhile, I am going to be happy living only in the present, making the most of every moment, being one with nature, and looking forward to more thoughtful interactions and hilarious moments of laughter and wit with my good pals. God bless my country!

Baton for the Marshal

By Roopinder Singh

The imposing four storeyed Rashtrapati Bhavan has 340 rooms, but on this day in 2002, all eyes were fixed on the Ashoka Hall. It was originally built as the State Balroom and the assembled guests walked on the polished wooden floor. Many glanced at the ceiling with a painting in the leather that depicted a royal hunting expedition in the centre and scenes from court life in the corners. It is a dark painting, and because of leather being the canvas, even the white has become brownish. The Persian-style paining was commissioned by Lady Willington when her husband was the Viceroy of India.
Those seated under this imposing canopy included Vice-President Krishan Kant, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Home Minister L.K. Advani, Defence Minister George Fernandes, External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, Air Chief Marshal Srinivasapuram Krishnaswamy and a large number of retired and service military officers.
The PBG buglers sounded the fanfare from the central vestibules. Everybody in the Ashoka Hall stood up. The President of India, Kocheril Raman Narayan, was escorted to the room by his aides-de-camp, dressed in the finery of their office. The band then played the National Anthem. The hall has seen many glittering events, but none as this one. On this day, the first-ever Marshal of the Indian Air Force was to be presented his baton by the President of India.
Marshal of the Indian Air Force Arjan Singh, DFC, had been named for this rarest of rare honours on January 26. This was the investiture ceremony for him and it meant a lot to everybody present, even though it had taken a while for it to happen.
A tall, handsome Sardar, sporting a milky white beard, wearing an Air Force uniform with five stars on the lapel, medals gleaming on his chest, marched up to the President with a sure stride. He belied his years and stood straight before the Supreme Commander of the Indian armed forces.
In a departure from the customary investiture ceremony protocol, but in keeping with the importance of the occasion, the Defence Secretary, Mr Yogendra Narain, read the citation that concluded thus:
“His inspiring career, towering personality and distinguished reputation have endowed him with a unique stature in society and have earned him the respect of the nation. Even till date, he actively associates himself with various welfare activities of the Air Force as a father figure of the service, which he nurtured from its fledgling days.“For his most outstanding and extraordinary service the nation the President of India is pleased to confer upon Air Chief Marshal Arjan Singh the rank of Marshal of the Indian Air Force.”
The President acknowledged the salute of the veteran warrior. The baton was brought up on a velvet cushion. It was a magnificent creation that took the blue from the sky and had the glitter of gold gliding. The President handed the baton to Marshal of the Air Force Arjan Singh, who saluted him again.
As he turned 90 on Wednesday, the nation saluteed its only living 5-star general, whose dignity, philanthropy and upright moral conduct make him an exemplar.

Obama’s cyber style

While people were looking for sartorial clues by checking out Michel Obama’s dress at her husband’s inauguration and subsequent balls, cyber junkies like me were also looking for clues about change in American presidency.
A fumbled oath-taking notwithstanding, change came quickly. The White House official website, Whitehouse.gov, was launched at 12.01 pm, moments after Obama was sworn in as the 44th President, and it was quite different from the one that had been up during the tenure of President George Bush.
“One of the first changes is the White House’s new website, which will serve as a place for the President and his administration to connect with the rest of the nation and the world,” said Macon Phillips, the White House director of New Media, in his message on the site said. Please note: The White House has a person in position and his team is delivering, admittedly after a few fumbles on Day 1. Those of us who see government websites that have not been updated for years can really appreciate this efficiency.
This website is one of the many ways in which IT is being been used by the new President to address the needs of his nation. There is also a nifty form in the “Contact us” section that allows a visitor to write a short (up to 500 words) note. The site was not updated frequently enough, and lacked information, but these are just beginner’s glitches.
While Michel Obama is seen as a style icon, her husband, who cuts no mean a figure himself, is also the President who fought to keep his Blackberry smart phone, and has been seen using a Mac, as does most of his team. Metaphorically, he has been called a Mac, thereby meaning “cool”, and not without reason.
Many old-timers thought the swearing in of the 44th President of the United States of America is in itself the ultimate integration of the black community with the rest. Until it actually happened, it did not seem possible that an African-American would become the leader of the free world, as Americans like to think of their President.
However, for the tech minded, integration that Obama represented had nothing to do with his race. Most of the teeming millions who thronged Washington for the inauguration were youngsters who thought Obama represented integration of the real and virtual word through the Internet, Blackberry, etc.
Candidate Obama blazed a new trail through his website at the beginning of his campaign. At that time he was facing Hillary Clinton and it was obvious that their distinctive personalities were reflected in the kind of websites they had. Hillary’s website was authoritative and a tad ponderous; Obama’s site had freshness meaning and purpose. He was wired, and he raised record millions of dollars in contributions through his website. She was not so tech-savvy, and it appeared that the website was an afterthought in the campaign in which she became an adjunct.
Obama was all over on the Net. From the short messaging site called Twitter to FaceBook, running his blog and answering mails on his Blackberry. Net-savvy people compared his campaign site to a Mac, and Hillary’s website to a Windows, implying savvy and smart for the former and formal and staid for the latter.
Now, it turns out that when Obama team members went to the White House, they found a dearth of Macs and a number of Windows machines with dated software. This was promptly blamed for the problems in updating the White House site in nano-seconds, as promised. Certainly, Windows will be the fall guys for many other inadequacies.
It did not help Windows’ cause the “Microsoft massacre” was announced soon thereafter confirming the company would be axing 5,000 jobs. Imagine President Obama’s Daily Economic Briefing: “Sorry for being late, but the Windows machines took time, and by the way, Microsoft is axing jobs”. Not exactly the good cheer the new President is hoping to spread.
Obama’s is now at a stage where actions will have to speak louder than words. If he delivers, the cyber world is a very powerful toll to communicate his success, if not, the speed and power of denunciation of this medium is legendary. At the end of the day, people want results; the reality of life always affects its extension, the cyber world.

Bond girl, banned boy

By Capt S Seshadri

Slumdog millionaire star Freida Pinto apparently dumped her long–standing boyfriend and is now tipped to be the new Bond girl. The Goanese beauty probably told her beau ‘Goan-boil your head’! Last heard of, the poor boy has turned vagabond while his ex-girlfriend chases James Bond!

Khan vs. élan
Farce has entered the game of cricket. The tragic-comedy begins thus:
Act One: Enter John Buchanan, advocating the multiple captaincy theory.
The cast: One ‘has-been’, one ‘being’ and one ‘would – be’ are all projected as captains for a match that lasts only 20 overs. Maybe they should be given separate roles as ‘toss captain’, ‘on-field captain’ and ‘press-meet captain’.
Act Two: Come in, Sunil Gavaskar, who lambasts this theory. His meagre qualifications… former Indian captain, once Test cricket’s highest run getter, highest Test century maker before Sachin Tendulkar, cricket columnist, expert commentator, Hall of Fame inductee.
Act Three: Enter Shahrukh Khan. The plot thickens… accuses the Little Master of ignorance on these matters since he has never played the T 20 version of the game. His unquestionable qualifications… actor, good dancer, six pack abs, multi-millionaire. Never played cricket though… even on the screen.
Yes, dear reader, an interesting farce. Produced in India, shot in South Africa, featuring the King of the silver screen and the King Kong of cricket. So where does that leave Mr. John Buchanan? Who has himself never played T 20 cricket! Outside the theatre, selling tickets in black, maybe???

Seminar Siesta

These days one is subjected to all kinds of seminars and conferences for reasons still unknown. Either one has to sit on the stage and speak on a subject which only remotely resembles an area of one’s interest, or one has to sit in the audience and nod one’s head vigorously as if one has never heard more truthful tales being told before in one’s life. Both experiences have their own story to tell, and hilarious situations often arise.
What happens is that speakers typically blow their own trumpet with unabashed aplomb. After a while, the high and mighty speaker gets offended at the crowd’s obvious lack of interest, as the onlookers gossip with the neighbour or look around at good looking targets. After receiving a chiding from our ‘trumpeter’, people do settle down for a while, only to drift into the realm of distraction again.
Having had to put up with such unending verbosity on numerous occasions, one tries to rush through one’s own talk, for two reasons. Firstly, one has very little to say and secondly, it is often past lunch time and the gastric juices have commenced their protest march!
Post-lunch there is another story to tell, as one usually finds oneself seated in a seminar hall which is half empty. The aforementioned gastric juices have given way to somnambulant tendencies and the frequency of delegates snoozing off is quite high! In fact, except the main organiser and his accomplices, few other dedicated souls appear to be interested in goings- on.
A recent event that one happened to attend highlighted these dozy trends like no other. The lunch on offer had been really sumptuous, embellished as it was with Puris and all kinds of Halwas. The audience was mostly middle-aged, and the opening speaker of the post-lunch session was not exactly India’s greatest orator. He actually managed to plunge proceedings to levels of boredom hitherto undiscovered.
This combination of factors was so compelling, and the chair which one occupied was so cushy that one couldn’t help catching some shut-eye either!
My pleasant siesta was rudely interrupted however by loud shouting from the stage. Our champion sleep- inducer had perceived finally that no one was exactly thrilled-to-bits while listening to him. He was so peeved by the fact that almost all of his audience was fast asleep, that he became quite violent with his language and he made no secret of his utmost displeasure! This unprecedented dressing-down had the desired effect, and every one including yours truly was soon perched on the edge of the aforementioned cushy seats, a position we maintained till the very end of the session. It seemed as if we were all watching a 20-20 humdinger!
That scary episode notwithstanding, one is seriously thinking of writing to organizers of seminars that they must invite item-number- specialists to perform on stage along with the speakers, or else add siesta- time to the official schedule!

Tendulkar is batting better than ever

Sachin Tendulkar is batting better than ever before...and that takes some doing! He has been the pre-eminent batsman of his generation, without a doubt. He has conquered, blasted, mauled and even devastated the best of bowlers in the world for the past 20 years, and he is still at it! For a batsman so dominant and breathtakingly strokeful, it is a wonder, even a miracle, that he has not only endured for so long, but has even grown better with age.

There was certainly a period in the last few years when his batting, especially in Test matches, was definitely on the wane. He seemed tentative at times, though flashes of brilliance were always on view. Injuries did not help and there were long periods when he had to keep out of cricket, thereby making a comeback of sorts many a time, not an easy task in cricket, even for the very best.

For the past two years though, and certainly as of now, Tendulkar has been delighting us again with the panache of old. His sublime centuries on tour in Australia, both in the Tests and in the ODI finals, followed by a brilliant match-winning knock in the historic Chennai Test last year against England proved that he was on song once more. The collective down turn of India's batting in Sri Lanka notwithstanding, 2008 proved to be the year when Tendulkar looked to be near his best.

In New Zealand, and one has been watching very closely, he seems so much at ease at the crease, and also with himself, that he has unraveled one magical stroke after another, with consummate ease. He has caressed the ball and he has seduced it to the boundary with such sheerness of class that Kiwi commentators (all former Test players) have often been left awestruck, dumbstruck and speechless, all at once.

In a career that has given us many a moment to relish and cherish, Sachin Tendulkar seems to be on top of his considerably spectacular game, and seems more at peace with his batting and his unending talent than he has ever been before.

Those who were chanting END-ulkar had better think again...here is a man who is likely to become the first to score a hundred international centuries...truly TON-dulkar! Bat on, Sir...we are watching with bated breath.