How to beat the Inflation Heat June 25, 2008

What we believe is what we want to believe.

 These words were probably told by me in this very blog a few months ago. Although, I never anticipated such change of fortunes, I still was somewhat correct. Even though, the primary reason for such rise can be attributed to crude oil prices, which is not doing to much good to our deficit in Current Accounts, still, even a minor part of it can be because of us.

 Yes, us. The increase of so many food joints, retail explosion, technology advancements, product lines etc makes the word “Buy More” written in bold red letters in front of us, the buyers. Since, every year, with the budget, the finance ministers excludes people in certain income brackets from paying taxes, the virtue of thrift has become obsolete. Now, you may think, that I am slowly taking the lines of President Bush and his incomprehensible viewpoints, but when you do come to a point in your life when you somewhat agree to President Bush, you know the universe is wrong. And we need to correct it.

 By this time, you have probably understood, that my effective ways of reducing the villain of the story to ashes, are only but rhetorical and not practical in their true sense. But wait! After giving a lot of thought to the problems at hand, I have some quite simple ways of reducing the pinch of price rise which if implemented, can bear some fruitful results. Not for the economy mind you, but for your own self. Even if you are rich and filthy enough to not care, still, caring for inflation has become a fashion statement. Caring for inflation, is an absolute in thing. It is more like saving the world from global warming, adopting children from third world countries, doing aerobic yoga etc.

 Let us look at some of them.

 

1. Celibacy: This is the most effective and the most difficult method of the lot. You see, the amount of money we spend is directly proportional to the amount of people of opposite sex we interact with. Men need to project what they are not; they try to dress somberly, they try and implement manicures and pedicures, they do some funny things to their hair and what not. Obviously, cars and bikes, latest gadgets are something to be considered, but a large chunk does go for the chitchats in restaurants, and watching rubbish films all for the sake of that “special” someone. In case of women, my lips are sealed. If I were to comment on the likelihood of women spending quality time and money on beauty care only to impress Men, the feminists will be enraged. But if we were to seriously consider the reduction of opposite-sex interaction, a lot of inflation related problems could be solved. Women would find it very difficult to undertake complicated  shopping decision if they don’t have Men standing in one corner looking absolutely bored to death and Men would never need to spend time out of watching football in their televison which is quite a cost-effective activity.
2. Increase of Saas Bahu Serials: I understand that attaining efficient levels of celibacy is but a hard thing to do, especially, because it is against the Indian  norms. But, again not a problem. Increase the amount of Indian fictional television soaps and reduce the reality. This would progressively promote the need for starvation, to give long life to your husband. Or, women, if you don’t like the idea of starving for the husband, aim to attain enlightenment by starvation. In fact, I disagree now with my take on reducing reality television series. Increase them, to promote God, and God like attributes by the eternal tried and tested method of a perpetual struggle. The closer you are to God, the farther you will move from Inflation.
3. Say no to Communication: I also believe that a large amount of buyer spending is on communication. What is the need to get tangled in the world wide web? Or involving yourself in worthless conversation with another human being ? Human beings are but cynical, the world is made up of selfish people who don’t care this bit about you and your phone bill. You can do better things than living one-sixth of the lifetime talking to people you hardly know and in doing such better things, you can reduce inflation. Remember, you are doing yourself good, and the phone companies bad. Think about that poor little dog who keeps running around roads and ponds. Reducing inflation and preventing animal exploitation all at one go!
4. Know yourself: In creating full proof methods of isolation from people you will finally come to know who you are. What we are  possibly is only known to the subconscious mind. Don’t go out, don’t spend petrol/diesel, don’t read newspapers, don’t play squash in the club. Just try  to find yourself. In doing so, you may be able to find the genius that is hidden behind that face in the mirror. Who knows, may be you will find more ways to love yourself and that would do you a world of good, not to mention how much good it would do to the inflation situation.
5. Eat less, think more: Now would be the ideal time to utilize your isolated moments. With the global food crisis looming large and your weight issues getting bigger by the day, it is time to direct your energies to be fitter and finer. Reduce your visits to the nearest pizza outlet. Instead, jog to your nearest bank and invest and then don’t forget to jog right back to your house. Eating a lot of good food, reduces a lot of thinking prowess, because after every session of good food, you are already thinking about the next session and the contents of that. What would be more important now, is to think, understand and appreciate the inflationary situation and how you can do good things to ensure that they are in fact good. Utilise your time to think more about how to add more points on how to reduce inflation. And write to me.

The King, the Knights and the People April 24, 2008

It is essential for me to begin by saying that I do not detest Shah Rukh Khan. We have had those coffee table conversations about him and his tendency to over-do things, be it in acting or in publicity and television shows. But my point of the argument (which is also a keen observation) is that when any personality attains a high enough position of unparalleled success, some people appreciate him, and some other sections of people become curious about such success. And such curiousity at the end of the day leads to pure loathing.

In spite of this, the news about Shah Rukh taking over a part of ownership of the Kolkata team in the cash rich cricket league seemed quite strange to me. He was more likely to take Mumbai – a place which is his own arena or the next likely Delhi. Why Kolkata?

Remember, and if you have been a follower of cricket you definitely will, that Kolkata has a huge history of crowd trouble. We are expert at throwing bottles when the game isn’t going to well. We have attained master’s degree in booing our very own team if Saurav Ganguly isn’t playing and the charge is actually led by our Chief Minister who is an ardent fan of Mr Ganguly, so much so that he supported South Africa when Saurav was dropped by the national selectors.

Anyway, past is past. While wondering about it for a while, I have realized that the reason why SRK has chosen Kolkata can be nothing except for the letter “K”. And he added one extra with “Knight” and that makes 1+1=2 Ks which should be enough to win the inaugural IPL. More on that later.

While most purists treat the IPL as “circus” the local media has been driven into frenzy. Sample the following excerpt after Sunday’s Match in Eden.

“The game itself never rose to expectations, but it had its little moments. What a sight it made, Adam Gilchrist in full throated appeal against Ricky Ponting, aghast at being given out leg before. Remember Christiano Ronaldo getting Michael Rooney thrown out of the world cup match on dubious foul claim? And then they went on to play happily for Manchester United“

This is the effect of SRK, his hysterics on the railings of the hospitality boxes, his continued acrobatic skills in full display and his marketing strategies which has made the media lose its mind. In fact the other day again in a local news channel when discussing about establishing loyalties, a certain celebrity remarked, “Its like the EPL. Why should there be a question of choosing? In the city of Manchester, there are two clubs, Manchester United and Manchester City, and a person may very well support both the teams at the same time!”

Thank you for that wonderful lesson of the day on EPL. Moving ahead, the team costume which is such a heated topic in every discussion board – be it in an Indian forum or the BBC- which has been designed by Manish Malhotra. Mr. Malhotra, who watched a live cricket match for the first time last Sunday has got out all the bling that there could be keeping the brand-SRK in mind. Though you and many of us think it is “hideous” and “right out of the yesteryears Indian mythological serials” it is very much fashionable (especially in the smouldering 42 degree heat in Calcutta) and also is in tune with Bengali sentiments, along with the classic adage “The Knights in Shining Armour”. See, black is taken right out of “Maa Kali” and gold signifies “pride”. To establish loyalties Saurav Ganguly has also been picked. I last saw him secretly being filmed by a news-less news channel haggling with a vegetable seller on the prices of cauliflowers. Anyway, his being the captain is a welcome change.

Lastly I would like to mention that SRK’s company Red chillies entertainment has been having a few disagreements with the CAB over proportion of profits of ticket prices which has linked to hints of sabotage on Eden horror pitch and light blackout. In my opinion, the move of inviting Rahul and Priyanka but not our honourable chief minister is a bad move on SRK’s part. He should understand to what extent the chief minister loves watching Saurav. And nothing should be taken away form the fact that a prominent part was played by the Bengal Government in changing the name of the city from Calcutta to Kolkata, a move without which SRK would never have bought this team. Also, when Hrithik Roshan performed in Salt Lake Stadium, he gave front row seats to Jyoti Basu and his entire family. There are more reasons why Buddha has been left sulking.

Looking ahead, Ricky Ponting and Brendan Mccullum are all going away for National duty. Shah Rukh Khan is going away for some International duty in Paris. So, I suppose we’ll have less of the dancing and more of the struggling.

A chilling discovery April 18, 2008

A few days earlier, I had discovered something quite extra-ordinary which up until that time hadn’t really struck me as something extra-ordinary. It happened in a small restaurant, near the university where students like us go to grab a bite in between or after classes. The restaurant is quite cheap, it has a cyber café, a pool table etc and like all small restaurants in dingy places in Calcutta, it has its fair share of small cockroaches roaming around the tables much to our disgust.

Well, anyway, though most people would go without food rather than eat in that restaurant, we of course cannot afford to do that. The classes take away every ounce of energy that we can gather from the morning, and replenishment is a necessity and not a luxury. This particular day, sitting at the table T found a small cockroach “eyeing her dangerously” through the corner of the table. In trying to find a better table without cockroaches we moved into another one only to find another cockroach sitting peacefully in another corner of that table.

Obviously, this inevitably led to a conversation. In fact, T points out that women in particular move from conversation topic to another conversation topic so fast that men find it hard to keep up with them. Although that is not the point of discussion at the moment.

C was completely amazed at us being afraid of those small little creatures. “Oh, it’s a small one! You guys are afraid of this? I cannot believe it”.

I just had to chip in. “I am just scared of the big ones that fly during the night”

C: Yes, those scare me too.

Me: But come to think of it. I haven’t seen a flying cockroach since the early 1990’s in my house. You know, when we had Doordarshan, and brokers and investors in stock markets involved themselves in floor bidding?

C was looking at me amusingly. “What has flying cockroaches got to do with the stock market?”

Me: 1990’s always remind me of that. India’s growth rate was low, Banks weren’t nationalized and we had five year plans. Yes, we used to have flying cockroaches at that time.

Now we don’t. In fact, we can now draw an inverse relationship with India’s growth rate and appearances of flying cockroaches.

T just hit me while losing control on her glass. “Can’t you see I am drinking water?”

Me (patting myself on the back): Oh! M! You are too good!

C: I still don’t understand the joke. What has flying cockroaches got to do with India’s growth rate?

H: By your calculations, the flying cockroaches may make a return quite soon, then.

Untitled September 7, 2007

  

I am sorry; I don’t seem to have a title to this piece. First, my brain is just so messed up with the whirlwind of exams gone by, that I have temporary lost some of my creative skills. Secondly, all the unique things mentioned below cannot be summarized with a single phrase since I suspect they are just random things which utterly jobless people do to remain utterly jobless.

• 1. It began in the last day of the examination. While writing, I seemed to think that today would be an end. An end, to the wonderful term I had, sitting and attending classes and to marvel at the eccentricities of human kind. I felt sad and disturbed. It was momentarily removed by the professor (mentioned here) who seemed to stand in the corridor with a cellphone in his hand, and using it like a walky talky and trying to pass on the message and then dolefully looking at the device because while using it in the walky-talky mode it didn’t seem to give him a worthwhile feedback. I smiled. Life was good.

                  Then it came back. The realization, that these distinguished gentlemen would become a thing of the past in the coming few weeks and we all would have to adjust to some new professors. Who knows, whether they would live up to the earlier professors who have instilled in us the belief, Eccentricity is infinite. Then while thinking this, a voice seemed to float about. Another professor (mentioned here) earnestly talking on the phone,”…listen I would be coming tomorrow. And I would be bringing with me, two senior citizens, two adults and two children.” And I sighed. This could mean that our professor was planning a holiday or a get-together. On the flip side, it could also mean that when he is not teaching, he likes to be Hannibal Lecter.

2.  The next day, we decided that to relieve ourselves from this ultimate depression we had to watch a good hindi film, because most good hindi films don’t require usage of brains. Chak De India, seemed to be a good bet. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, that Yash Raj Films seem to have some problem going on with the multiplexes, so the film is not running in the city’s multiplexes (except for Fame which is quite far away from my house). It has been eons since I went to a single screen theatre until last Tuesday. And it was fun.

 Single screen theatres are fun because of the people in it. There are enough things going on around you to get your mind away from bad seats or the lousy air conditioner. Like for example, the couple sitting beside me; the man seems to have watched the film before and thus recounts every scene to his female friend, dialogue by dialogue. Or the people who are so blinded by the camera work, that they keep on cheering every goal and every save as if it is a real game. Or like the man sitting beside me predicts the outcome of the penalty shootout before it happens and the women beside him groans and says,”Stop! Don’t say anything, can’t you see they aren’t scoring any goals?”

Single screen theatres are also fun because after the end of the film you can find out that a man has been sleeping throughout the entire film and is still sleeping even after the show has ended. He is still sleeping when people notice this and come towards him to snap pictures from their camera phones (to be used as souvenirs). He still takes a while to wake up, when the theatre staff comes up to him and nudges him so that he can leave the theatre.

• 3. Outside the theatre, there were around 20 people sitting on a fence. Actually, there were 10 people sitting on the right, and 10 people sitting on the left and in between them there was this huge white board with capital letters which read “SITTING ON A FENCE IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED”

We also noticed that there is not a dustbin in sight for about 2kms and that too in such a centrally located area in the city. So, we walked back for about 2 kms again to the theatre and thankfully found a dustbin.  Readers should note that “2 kms” may or may not be accurate, it may be more.

            My statistics knowledge tells me, that for every 4 good citizens, there are atleast 100 bad citizens. (This number is again not accurate, it may be more). So there are 100 bad citizens who don’t think twice to throw stuff in the roads, and about 400 citizens who would give up after not finding a dustbin within a proximity of 10 metres and throw it anyway. Now, the logic is, if the government cannot help to keep the city clean and put up dustbins, can it actually help in trying to reprogram the city’s bus drivers? They seem to think that people crossing the roads are for squashing, especially if an adequate number of mosquitoes couldn’t be squashed last night for unforeseen circumstances.

• 4. Never judge a book by its cover. You may have heard this proverb. But it is time to change it. The new motto should be, Never judge a book by its title.

         A quick visit to the library next day, helped me realized this, when I chanced upon the name of a book. It read A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Gulu. When I recounted the name of a book to a friend, she found the name Xiaolu Gulu very funny. May be she was expecting a Chinese born author’s name to be slightly different than this.

Readers are requested to give their opinions regarding whether they find anything remotely amusing regarding the title or the author and explain why. They are also requested to state if they don’t find this funny at all.

Now, I am a simple girl. First thing that came to my mind, is that this book was specifically for those who have a Chinese boyfriend or a Chinese girlfriend and want to impress him/her. In fact, some interpretations from friends suggest that “lovers” may not signify love interest, but love for the language in general, although I abide by my former interpretation. Interesting, you might say, and an absolute indicator of cross-cultural bonding.

Anyway, the thing is that I could end my post here and you could google the name to find out more (since you have a Chinese boyfriend or a girlfriend), or you may not, taking what I said was true. But since you have stuck with this post for so long, the least I can do is spill the beans for you.

People who have Chinese love interests would not find the book suitable, since it is not a dictionary (it is not “d” of the word dictionary). It is a work of fiction. A Chinese girl leaving her country and going to London, falling in love with an Englishman, and having her own dilemmas about her attitudes as well as others. And the book is written in bad English, deliberately.

I have never been so dumbfounded in my life, reading the first page of a book and now I have been dumbfounded, thanks to marketing.

So, moral of the story, Never judge a book by its title. And Never underestimate Marketing in any sphere of this world, even literary compositions.

My Evil Plans of World Domination. May 12, 2007

Since it has been a long time I haven’t posted anything and maybe in the coming few months I would be even more busy; desperately trying to submerge myself in the deep oceans of knowledge and endeavoring to uncover some of the mysteries posed by the subject of Economics and similar other big shot subjects, I have decided to spew some rubbish here for the benefit of the readers. 

 I don’t know how many of you have found the Evil Villain in books or movies making basic mistakes in their plans. In fact, now I can say that the efficiency level of evil villain might follow the Law of Variable Proportions. First it increases, then reaches constancy and then finally decreases to inevitable death.

 As unfortunate this may seem, the logical reason would be that in relation to time, Our Villain’s complacency increases, and degree of complacency is directly proportional to more chances of reaching an untimely death in hands of the so-called hero, who devoid of the talent and skill is still a hit amongst the ladies. 

Okay, so enough talk. What is necessary for any prospective Evil Villain is to devise an Evil plan which should be rock solid so that there are no loopholes. But as Murphy’s Law suggests, if anything can go wrong it will, care should be taken. So, it becomes necessary to create a back up plan, which can be used in emergency circumstances. This could be very useful in case of the idiotic, untalented, unskilled, underdog who in strange circumstances may be discovered as the son of the Evil Villain himself. That is also something, which needs to be looked into. Err, I mean no girlfriends for our Villain. That would sort of diminish the extreme evilness which is needed to be established thoroughly.

The Evil Villain has reasons for being an Evil Villain. He has solid reason for being Evil, and reasons are quite complex. In this sample of mine, the Evil Villain is just evil. His nature is necessarily evil and he likes to be evil. This is a complex psychological state of mind, which a layman would find difficult to understand.  

Anyway, to begin our plan, first we need to traumatize the people of the world. This is essentially important; because only through trauma will they sit up and take notice. The arrival of the Evil Villain has to be dramatic, extraordinary and terrible. With titles like “The terrible one”, “Demon straight out of the hell” this should be easy. The public should be stunned by the “Sadistic fiend” whose “Intelligence has been harnessed to create what we know today as the Computer”

Next up, is the employment of some mad scientists who are unemployed. Together, they will devise what is called Death Ray. Death Ray is something very complex. Through extensive stealing of plutonium and other radioactive elements, the creation of Death Ray is possible. Whoever is exposed to this terrible ray will die instantaneous death, yes, something which you could never have imagined.

  Needless to say, that such devastation from White House to World Trade Center would make all people to flock to the Evil Villain, begging to do his every bidding. His name would become synonymous with the Backstreet Boys. But, personally, the devastation unleashed by the Backstreet Boys was nothing compared to this small time Evil Villain of ours.  Finally the Opening of the Seven Seas of the Armageddon Clock, would spell doom. And if by that time the underdog hero vows to save the world before bedtime, our Evil Villain would have to fight with him.  Before that, it has to be made sure that the hero’s pet dog, monkey, lizard, elephant, hippopotamus, gorgonzola or whatever other cute animal that is capable of untying ropes, bringing keys is captured and killed. Then the Villain will throw a bottle of hazardous bottle of chemicals on the hero and he will be dead. So simple, why didn’t anyone else think about that before? 

And once his power is secure, he will destroy any pesky time machines that might be at hand. And so the end is upon us. 

If this entire plan is too complex for you there is another very simple one. Just enter a closet in your house and lock yourself in. And say “I have dominated the world and brought darkness”. Works all the time.  

I guess, this is Freakonomics? March 29, 2007

Our Macro Economics professor is quite unique. On the first meeting one may find him as a lean, old gentleman who looks like just another university professor. But only students like me have had the displeasure to go through his 1 hour lecture never stopping to wonder for a second whether he is mentally sound or not.

One of the first rumours that I heard about him was that he got hit by a bull in a market place, but I refused to believe it.  But when he admitted in class that he did get attacked by a bull, I felt sorry. If the bull had any slightest amount of consciousness then he would have resisted to such an activity and would have had a longer life. But somethings aren’t meant to be.

The next rumour was that all his teeth are fake, and that is the reason why he keeps flashing them in class. I haven’t really had the opportunity to find the truth in it, and I don’t want to meet the same fate as that of the bull – so that’s that.

The third thing about him is that he dislikes Cell phones, thinks they are a waste of time, money and energy. A mobile phone according to him is a good for nothing device and it does not serve any purpose. Even though he reserves such an opinion he has a cell phone which was actually gifted to him by one of his students. In his own words, ‘I neither know how to call people or receive calls from others, I also do not know how to read messages or send them. But I still carry the phone, and you half-wits will never understand what purpose the cell phone serves me, because you just do not have the IQ to find out the reason’.

Every week the professor presents himself in class and his voice is practically so inaudible to the human ear, that I have been forced to think that perhaps our Head of the Department should organize a course for lip-reading. Yet, if someone dares to ask him to repeat he goes on to this whole talk about “I never repeat what I say, my pronunciation is very good and I know better English than you do.”

He has of course an obsessive compulsive disorder of closing all the doors and windows of the class. He will make one student come up from the last bench to close both doors tightly and also the windows as well. If you cannot close the doors and windows “properly”, then he will continue to make you close the door until you “properly” close it or else he won’t begin the class.

Then the professor’s chair has to be shifted to a “suitable” location by the student. Which location is suitable has to be decided by the student. If the student’s location does not match with the professor’s location, then of course the professor will never tell him what actually the location is where the student has to shift the chair. If he is incapable of finding the professor’s preferred location for the chair, he is termed as a half-wit and an incompetent individual who does not deserve to sit in class. 

If we are lucky to have a lecture after this, the professor will continue to occasionally shift to topics which bear no context with the lecture’s subject and are only aimed to establish the professor’s superiority amongst us. He never hides the fact that his writings and models are published in journals overseas, that he spent 6 days with Robert Solow in MIT and had occasionally exchanged emails with him. Although that mode of communication was now no more, he never replied to Robert Solow and Mr. Solow never replied to him and its been many years since their last email correspondence. Of course, we, his students are absolutely incompetent and we will never be able to visit places like that in our entire lifetime.

Sometimes he goes into this mode of smiling so fervently, yet we never find the reason of what is so funny. Like the other day, when he kept talking about the fact that he visited that place in London where the Apple hit Newton’s head, and he formulated the Law of Gravitation. The tree is not there anymore.  He found that story so amusing that he kept on expressing his surprise by smiling and flashing his perfect teeth and speaking some inaudible words which we never deciphered.

I am not sure about the reason of his hatred for us, yet he chooses to come to class and teach us every week and ridicule and condemn us so blatantly. And some students are so dumb that they just walk right in to trap. For example:

Professor: I don’t think anyone has heard about Big Bang Theory. I don’t think anyone has heard about Stephen Hawking here

To the boy in the first bench: Do you know who is Stephen Hawking?   

Boy: Yes sir, he first proposed the Big Bang theory. 

Anyway, he did ask us to buy Brief History of Time from the bookstore after that. Not sure about what the professor thought about the first bench boy.