Travel Redefined

I travel to Bangalore fairly often. The journey has almost never been comfortable. My trips were far too unplanned for me to be able to procure train tickets and so I usually ended up taking the bus. Each experience was unique. I got stuck in the rain, the bus was often late, the driver would never tell me when we were expected to reach, I was "upgraded" to a different bus because the one I booked was cancelled, and so on. On one occasion, I decided to prioritize comfort over economy and booked Olivea Travels, the very definition of wanton expenditure (and therefore, luxury) because it costs half as much as flying even though it takes nine times as long. The bus was five hours late. Incidentally, Olivea Travels' tagline is "travel redefined" - quite fitting; I swore off buses thereafter. 

On my next trip I decided to fly - an equally eventful experience because my 35 minute flight was delayed by 45 minutes and the landing was truly memorable. I returned by car, got caught in traffic and missed work. I was quite delighted. 

Having tried every mode of transport other than trains, I decided that the time had arrived and I booked my tickets well in advance. I took Shatabdi and I loved it - it was like a plane except that the scenery outside keeps changing, you can keep your phone switched on and you don't get a faceful of whatever you're eating when the person in front of you reclines their seat. 

It was on that ridiculously comfortable journey that I realised the many ways in which even those who claim to love travelling numb their senses to the journey by reading a book or listening to music. On earlier occasions, I did everything possible to escape the sensation of travel altogether by forcing myself to sleep on the bus or read until the battery died out. In essence, these are attempts to modify the experience of travelling into something else. It is a refusal to acknowledge that waiting is as much a part of travelling as anything else. 

I felt a very strong urge to write all this down at the time but I became entangled in the question of whether recording an experience at that point would diminish its intensity and amount to a modification. Also, I took a different train on my way back, which was an hour late, and I was able to remember just how much I hate waiting, irrespective of its role in the overall experience. 

Ageing Gracefully and Other Lies

I am absolutely terrified of getting old. Not the lines, wrinkles and knee replacement fears, no. I’m afraid of turning into one of those people who are so not fun that you just can’t accept the fact that they were once kids. You take one look at them and it’s implausible. “Nooo! That guy? Why, he must have worn a well-tailored suit and a frown ever since he was a baby!” Horrifying, isn’t it?

Age figures quite prominently in pop culture. There are numerous hilarious references to ageing and old people.  And that’s just as well. Pop culture is, after all, a youth thing.

So do “I hope I die before I get old?” Well, I don’t really hope to die. I know I will someday, but I think we can all agree that it’s not something that most of us really look forward to. That said, I must admit that dying young has its perks. You never have to worry about ageing gracefully, whatever that is. You remain forever youthful in everyone’s memory because nobody has ever seen you any other way. You don’t get to the point where you have to eat your words because you don’t live long enough to be brought to account for your verbal diarrhea. And you get to leave the world having severely pissed off your insurers and bankers. That’s got to feel good.

How about Benjamin Button? Get old age over with as soon as you’re born? That arrangement makes dying early really suck. Besides, I’d hate to have to worry about my dentures and cataract when I should be a curious toddler excited about the world. Not taking that deal ever.

That leaves Dorian Gray: staying young forever. I would’ve said Peter Pan but the boy could never get a drink. Most of us fancy being Dorian Gray. Botox takes us halfway there. But I’m not impressed. I don’t think we stop doing foolish things until we realise how foolish we look doing them.

I think Biology has got it about right. 

The Need for Mediocrity

Everyone should watch Aaj Tak once in a while. Rakhi ka Swayamvar was India’s answer to The Bachelorette. Masterchef India was in a league of its own. They have all brought much laughter to the world. But mediocrity extends well beyond TV shows.

Consider Chetan Bhagat or Stephanie Meyer. But they are relatively popular authors with mediocre abilities. Think of all the lousy books you’ve ever tried to read by authors whose names you don’t remember. Would you fully appreciate a good story if you had nothing worse to compare it to?

We are fortunate to have so much to dislike and mock. Imagine how boring life would be if every TV show was fantastic, every book was a masterpiece and every song was pure genius. What would we make fun of? What could possibly peel us away from TVs and computers? More importantly, how would one come to terms with their own mediocrity if they are surrounded by excellence?

Chances are that we won’t be able to take it. Conversations would taper away if everything was praiseworthy. We would actively seek mediocrity or pressure those who are great to generate so much material that some of it is bound to tend towards the average. We might even entirely lose the ability to recognise brilliance. 

The law of large numbers is fantastic. It makes life worth living.

It's only Inertia, Dear Boy

The London Olympics brings back fond memories of the 2010 Commonwealth Games – the media always had something to do. They were so happy. The world seemed so eventful.

Here is some of the fodder that the London Olympics is providing for the journalists: the logo is hideous, the allegations that Olympics uniforms are being manufactured in sweatshop labour conditions in Indonesia are being taken “very seriously”, the security threat of lone idiots disrupting the events has been recognised and the closing ceremony will include a tribute to British pop culture called “Symphony of Rock”.

The London Olympics Organising Committee is also taking the Symphony of Rock “very seriously”. No, really. They’ve pulled out all the stops. The list of performers is expected to include the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Elton John and Coldplay, among others. You might even say they went overboard with their enthusiasm. Among those invited was The Who’s legendary drummer, Keith Moon. It’s very nice of the organisers to ask, of course. But they just missed him – by nearly 34 years. In an uncharacteristically selfish move, Keith Moon has declined the invitation to play at the Olympics because he is dead. What a bummer.

Well, you can’t argue with that. It certainly is a valid reason, possibly the only one acceptable for refusing the honour of representing one’s country on a global stage. But 1978 was such a long time ago. Things change. Perhaps the organisers were just checking if he’s still dead.

I suspect they saw pictures of Moon dressed like a sex kitten and assumed he had nine lives. Or maybe, since he is Keith Moon after all, they believed that he could do pretty much anything he wanted to, including rising from the dead to detonate a drum kit for an Olympics ceremony. The Who’s manager, Bill Curbishley, hasn’t ruled out the possibility. In his polite response to the invitation, he helpfully suggested, “If they have a round table, some glasses and candles, we might contact him.”

I would totally watch that.

Losing my Decisions

Choice has made me miserable. You might even say that the constant stress of decision-making has ruined my life. It’s the more trivial choices that drive me insane. This is how having to make a choice really makes me feel. I didn’t worry so much about my choices earlier and I’m forced to admit that the pursuit of economics has a not-entirely-unimportant role to play in this matter.

It would save me much mental turmoil if I could just appoint someone else to make decisions for me. But the rebel in me would start resenting the decision-maker and wondering if I should follow his advice and that will be yet another choice I have to make. I’m beginning to have serious misgivings about the economic assertion that more choice makes a person better off.

Enter coin. My pride won’t allow me to outsource decision-making to anybody else, so I use the humble coin. It’s a dear. It has no ideological leanings that could cause me to see its recommendations through a tinted glass. It always has the time for me. It never judges me. And so far, it has never been wrong. I must mention here, before you dismiss my decision-making mechanism, that I’m not alone in randomising decisions and hoping that on an average, no other decision-making algorithm can consistently outperform a coin toss.

Much as I hate to make choices, the truth is that I have already chosen. The answer is in my head but I don’t know it because it’s hidden under many layers of rationalisations and tautological arguments. The coin forces the truth out of me: I keep increasing the sample size until the coin tells me what I want to hear. Or so I tell myself lest the rebel in me should start resenting the coin too. 

Ba Ba Ba Ba Barbara-Ann

I recently had an interview (another firm that decided it didn’t want to hire at all as soon as they met me) where they asked me what I would like to be questioned about. My interviewer, a rather dashing man, helpfully added that, “It’s no fun if you have no clue about the topic,” just to boost my confidence, I suppose. The only answer I could think of at the time was pop culture. And I turn up my nose at quite a lot of that too. Considering the fact that they didn’t hire me anyway, I realise now that I should have overcome my inhibitions and said it: “Ask me anything about pop culture.” And if he dared to ask me about some horrible single that’s topping the charts I could’ve sneered at him and refused to work with someone with such an awful taste in music.

Pop culture is such a wonderfully unnecessary social construct that I can’t help wanting to waste all of my time on it. The connection between two people who listen to the same music or love the same TV show is instantaneous, maybe more so than two people who grew up in the same neighbourhood. The more obscure the reference, the stronger the kinship you feel with the person who was able to identify it.

Lately, however, it’s started bothering me that all my conversations are an awfully tangled mess of pop culture references. I can’t for the life of me remember the last time I went an entire day without alluding to anything that I came across through popular media. For someone who, as a rule, avoids social networking sites like the plague, this is a real bummer. This means that if I was cut off from the internet, television, reading material and my iPod for a few weeks, I would have absolutely nothing new to talk about. Oh, the horror!

But let’s think about the alternative. Let’s assume for a moment that I wasn’t quite so obsessed with music, movies and suchlike and that I had “real” conversations with people. Exactly how would these conversations go? Would I talk about my feelings? The meaning of life? Idle gossip? I’ll take pop culture any day. Don’t kid yourselves. We’re not Einstein reincarnations. It is time to accept the fact that there is no life beyond youtube.

Stop... er...

I was directed to the Stop Kony movement by a comment on one of my previous posts. As far as writing material for a blog goes, this is the absolute gold standard. But words fail me.  

I was introduced today to a rather interesting paper on the nature of political revolutions. It appears that 2012 is the season for revolutions of a different sort. 2011 set the stage pretty well with our beloved Mr. Hazare and Occupy Wall Street which, for some reason, seem to have eclipsed real (and more violent) protests elsewhere. 

The Invisible Children movement is probably a natural extension of the power trip that social media thinks it is on. But Oprah Winfrey and Justin Bieber's endorsement should have set off alarm bells much sooner. Now, now. Don't judge young Mr. Russell. People have done far worse under stress. 

Losing my Unemployment

I expected my first paycheque to cover a lot of expenses I had planned. Having a job requires one to sacrifice a lot of the time ordinarily earmarked for doing nothing. To compensate, I made extensive plans to correctly channel money towards buying myself all the joy I want.

But I’m sorely disappointed. My first paycheque can’t buy me a grand piano, a vacation in western Europe, a decent vinyl record collection, a section of a library, a Bugatti Veyron, real estate on the moon, a small Hawaiian island, tuition for a good academic program, a quaint bistro in southern France or youtube. Money can probably buy happiness if you are as shrewd at planning your purchases as I am. But I can’t know for sure. Not within a month of getting a job in any case.

I also feel like I’ve lost some part of my identity by losing my unemployed status quo. My tally of companies that came, saw and left without recruiting anybody was steadily rising, something that made me believe I had a superpower. A larger sample does, after all, indicate more robust results. Receiving a job offer has taken away all my imaginary powers, not to mention the inspiration for many a blog post.

On the bright side, I got bored of worrying last week and decided that things could either sort themselves out or they could go to hell. I’m happy to report things voluntarily chose the decidedly less attractive option of sorting themselves out despite my curtness.

Additionally, the placement cell is truly relieved: far more excited about me having got a job than they seemed to be about their own jobs. Within 3 minutes of sending me my offer letter, the placement cell officially declared the close of the placement season. I was clearly the most difficult case on their hands. I know it took a lot of patience. 

Business Communication

 “…for the businessman, the greatest gift is to be able to speak so many words which seem to signify something but don’t, which convey a general attitude but are free from commitment.”

For 3 years I studied business and desperately groped for words to describe the exasperating imprecision of every statement I read. Mr. R.K. Narayan puts it so accurately, succinctly and seemingly effortlessly, that I’m afraid I may have become a business(wo)man myself.  

Much as I lament the English language’s limitations for expressing romanticism, I must praise its pliability for business: the scope for ambiguity is immense.

That said I’m quite scandalised with my English these days. It started when I first discovered online dictionaries that would pronounce words like the Americans and the British do: I realised that I didn’t speak like either of them and to add to it, my pronunciation didn’t even resemble the spelling – I was wrong in every way it was possible to be wrong.

We don’t realise how much of the “good English” we speak is actually very bad English. Being able to string a sentence together is hardly indicative of mastery of the language. If the British ever come back to visit they’ll never guess that we’re speaking their language. We can try to speak in a polished accent or use big words, but speaking correctly is a far cry for most of us, and is unlikely to become a reality unless we decide to spend a lot of time scanning Wren & Martin (oh, you boys) and listening to that stuck up witch on TFD speak “propahly” everyday. 

Stop Writing Already

I can’t help marvelling the amount of completely superfluous writing we all do on a daily basis. We write blogs and text messages but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Think about all the writing that goes into reports, business proposals, university applications, job applications, any application, college projects, official reports – most of this is solicited work, rewarded with grades, admission or money. And yet, most of it goes unread. Nobody wants to read it. We pay money to make people who don’t want to write, write reports that nobody wants to read. Why?

The demand for “writing skills” in almost every job profile is nearly comical. Apparently the need for strong communication skills overshadows any technical or industry-specific skill one would require to get a job done. It’s more important to be able to talk or write about what one plans to do. Is this because the information age has put us out of touch with skills like writing complete sentences or being able to make conversation beyond “suuup?” or is it because jobs must involve useless, joyless activities? I suspect it’s a bit of both. And maybe much else that management never taught me. 

Relatively Speaking

I think I finally understand relativity. It’s a special theory because it often singles me out. Living at the edge of the city helps me experience the curves in the spacetime continuum on a daily basis. No matter how early I wake up time bends in a peculiar way, something well beyond the cognitive capacity of ordinary human beings, to ensure that I’m always late. Space, too, doesn’t take the ordinary rectilinear form I would expect it to. The tardier I am, the further away my college seems to be – space curves away from me, much like a good leg spin. To a stationary observer, I’m just a person with no sense of time. But I perceive time and space to be rushing away from me whenever I move in any direction. 

A Valentine Miracle

The Shiv Sena and the MNS decided not to make a spectacle of themselves as they usually do during that special time of the year. I was surprised and confused. Reading about the moral brigade’s new initiatives and applauding their creativity is as much a part of Valentine’s Day as Archie’s oversized teddy bears and heart-shaped balloons.

Perhaps the relatively young Mr. Raj Thackeray has found love? He decided not to harass lovers celebrating Valentine’s Day this year. In fact, the Shiv Sena and the MNS, easily two of the most entertaining parties in India despite stiff competition from their peers in Karnataka and elsewhere, made arrangements to ensure that election campaigns don’t interfere with the celebrations. It appears that these icons of exemplary behaviour are unable to disentangle matters of the heart from matters of the vote.

However, other right-wing groups across the country, eager to add to their core competency, decided to pick up where the story was left off and adopted new measures to combat the social evil of publicly proclaimed love. I hardly think carrying mangalsutras around to insist that any couple celebrating Valentine’s Day be married on the spot is awfully bright. But I'd be a fool not to acknowledge that it does solve the dowry problem quite neatly. 

A Matter of Class

I’m quite a fan of an online cartoonist who has devoted much of his time to researching minor behaviour and speech modifications that can make you appear “100% classy.”While he usually deals with more serious issues like the possibility of adding, “You may quote me,” at the end of each sentence or naming your dog ‘Sir’, I decided to turn my attention towards the more mundane matter of appearing classy on paper so that I could help people ooze class on their webpage or blog. I have the first step all figured out. It’s quite elementary, really. In order to appear classy, I must do exactly what Wikipedia does to be mistaken for a real source of information: obsessively reference everything I write and add footnotes wherever possible.[1]

The second step, obviously, is to use hyperlinks. Now this step calls for some prudence. If you hyperlink everything, your page ends up looking rather shady. Hyperlinks must be evenly distributed, thoughtful and used judiciously. One hyperlink for every 150-200 words is ideal.

The third step is to replace a few words with more complex synonyms. This will require a little bit of effort to ensure the context is correct. Another excellent idea is the use of third person. “One” is just so much classier than you or I.

The last step of course is style. If one doesn’t have that, there’s not much one can do.

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[1] Support for this school for thought can be found here.

Why I'm not an economist

One of the things I did when I was studying for my exams was making a list of great people I would invite to my imaginary birthday party. Sometimes I'm really thankful for exams because such an exercise won't be excusable under any other circumstances. I looked over the list to see how many economists were on it. Zero. Musicians, authors, actors, physicists, comedians, cartoonists, artists and chefs but no economists. I had only considered two and chose to exclude them, not just because my list was restricted to 25 people, but also because I thought they would bring the party down. 


And that's when I realised that I would never be cool enough to get invited to my own party. 

Kiran Bedi to be flogged

Gandhian Anna Hazare, whose claim to fame was flogging a dead horse, has declared that Team Anna member Kiran Bedi will be tied to a tree and flogged publicly next week for inflating travel bills. Preparations for the event are underway.

Feminists are have protested the move, arguing that Bedi is being targeted because she is a woman, and more deserving candidates like Kejriwal and Bhushan have been overlooked simply because “Mr. Hazare is awfully sexist.”

Despite the media attention, however, Team Anna members spoke of the event quite casually. “It’s really not that big a deal. They used to burn witches at the stake in Europe. We’re just flogging her,” said a spokesperson.

Meanwhile, drunks in Ralegan Siddhi where Annaji first instituted the holy practice of flogging drunkards in temples have suffered emotional breakdowns following the news. “I really thought I was special, that it meant something to him. And now he’s flogging pretty much everyone. In front of TV cameras. It’s shameful, shameful!” a former floggee cried.

"You're lying to yourselves," PCI Head tells Indian media

Former Supreme Court justice Markandey Katju, who is now the head of the Press Council of India, is facing a backlash from the Indian media for suggesting that they have poor journalistic standards, as opposed to this page.

Holding up a copy of Mail Today which had a picture of the Duke and the Duchess of Cambridge on the front page with “Kiss Me Kate!” written below it, Mr. Katju said, “Seriously. What is this?” to his interviewer, Mr. Karan Thapar, who nodded grimly.

“I want to have more teeth,” Mr. Katju continued, examining his dentures. “I want the power to regulate the electronic media, I want the power to stop government advertisements, I want power, power, power!” he exclaimed with an evil laugh. 

Chinese government unhappy with Eric Schmidt

The Chinese government has reacted strongly to Google Chairman Eric Schmidt condemning their censorship policies. In its official response, the Chinese government said, “We have allowed them to make products that don’t require censorship. It is a huge market and we are asking them to operate under a few restrictions. They don’t have to be decadent capitalistic pigs about it.”

Defending the government’s censorship policy, a spokesperson for the government said, “We only censor things that nobody needs to know. We’re just like good parents who protect their children from harsh realities. We want our people to be happy. Sometimes erasing a part of your memory is a good thing. Haven’t you watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?”

On being reminded that the movie actually suggests that the reverse is true, he whispered, “Not in the version that hit Chinese screens.”

Sarkozy’s foot to be permanently inserted in his mouth

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is due to undergo a minor surgery this Saturday to permanently insert his foot in his mouth. Following his unsavoury and embarrassing remarks about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Sarkozy has decided that the procedure will save him much time and effort.

“People are quite superficial and their expectations are often based on appearances. I want people to judge me correctly at first glance,” said the small Frenchman.

“If a taller man spoke like he does, the procedure would have been much more complicated. Fortunately, Mr. Sarkozy is short enough for the procedure to be completed in a matter of minutes. In fact, we expect that he will manage to perform the surgery himself,” said his doctor. 

Anna Hazare unable to lose last 6 pounds

Even after two rounds of fasting, anti-obesity crusader Anna Hazare has been unable to achieve his ideal weight. “At the end of the last hunger strike he was quite happy with the results, but he soon started regaining the pounds. He was so upset that he refused to speak to anybody,” said a Team Anna member.

But Mr. Hazare has refused to give up. Understanding the importance of a positive body image for the youth of the nation, he has decided to go on a fast yet again to show them that determination is everything and that the perfect figure is attainable for everyone.

Looking to espouse a cause that would inspire many to join him and thereby motivate him to see his weight loss plan through, Mr. Hazare has dropped the campaigning “against” political parties idea and decided to protest match-fixing by Pakistani cricketers instead, a cause that is expected to garner massive support because they haven’t played good cricket in years. 

Game Theorist receives $2 for lost luggage

A top airline company reportedly compensated a top game theorist with $2 for his lost luggage based on the famous Traveller’s Dilemma formulated by Kaushik Basu.

“We just assumed that he would be rational so instead of going through the motions of telling him that another traveller has lost an identical item and that we would pay $2 extra to the passenger who claims a lower value, we just directly skipped to the Nash equilibrium outcome. Our corporate motto is to anticipate customer expectations and fulfil them and I think we have lived up to our reputation,” said an airline official on condition of anonymity.

The elated passenger commended the airline for its farsightedness and excellent grasp of rationality and game theory. “The ideal world is within reach now,” he declared.

Airlines are queuing up to offer exclusive services to game theorists and rational economic persons.