Lover no more

About 5 years and 5 months after I first started posting on this blog, I am done with it.

Today, I am very different from the person who published that first post on this blog. I am a lover no more.

So, I am putting an end to this blog. There will be no more new posts published here. At some point next May, the URL http://blog.libranlover.net will become obsolete. When that happens, you will still be able to access and read the posts by just replacing blog.libranlover.net with libranlover.blogspot.com.

I will still continue to check the email account associated with this blog (see top right corner of this blog for the address) and occasionally respond to comments on here.

May god bless you all with much love and happiness. Me, I will be happy if god just keeps love, women and physical desires out of my life.

Indian Strugge for Independence Vs American War of Independence

I visited Mt Vernon today. It is the home of United States' first president General George Washington. The mansion and grounds are somewhat interesting. But I found their museum / education center to be truly wonderful.

It was in the museum at Mt Vernon that I discovered exactly for how long the American War of Independence went on: eight years, from 1775 to 1783.

Just EIGHT years! By contrast, the first war of Indian Independence happened in 1857. The British had already colonized many parts of India for years before then. It would be 90 - NINETY - f-ing more years after that first so called war for India to get its independence. How many more humiliated, killed, enslaved during that time? How much of India's wealth shipped to Britain, while India was impoverished, famines caused and millions killed?

In fact, we don't (CAN'T) even call India's bid for freedom a war. We only call it a struggle. Like a slave's struggle for freedom.

Nearly 62 years after we got independence, as I sit here and type this, my heart burns! We had to 'struggle' to get the freedom that should have been ours by right. An ancient civilization, which had already had many great and vast empires, a land which had raised countless armies of its own, a land of millions of people - such a land had to struggle for over a century before becoming independent. An independence which came with the cost of partition, a cost paid for by the life and blood and property of millions.

By contrast, America's army that fought in their war of independence was relatively young. It was outnumbered by the British army 10-to-1. The American population (not counting the Native Americans) was extremely small, compared to the Indian population. They WON their independence in just eight years. They did not wait for any f-ing British to grant them independence. They just declared it and they stuck to their guns.

As we drove back from Mt Vernon, I kept telling to myself: "No wonder India is where it is, compared to where America is".

Kajol - The Case for Cloning

Information Vs Knowledge

Question: What is the difference between information and knowledge?

Answer:
Information is the mundane and factual. Knowledge is the profound, the deep and the holistic.

Information is merely the external defined relationship - be it as a gf-bf or a husband and wife. Knowledge is the deep shared love, the awareness of each others moods, the connected empathy, the intimate familiarity with each others scents, the feel of the different parts of each others bodies - the vast foundation of which the external relationship is merely a limited feature or symptom.

Like love which can spill across the defined boundaries of relationships, knowledge can spill over the limits of discrete bits of information.

Introducing Anand Giridharadas

Today, I am happy to introduce my readers to Anand Giridharadas.

Some of you may already know Anand. He is an American-born child of Indian immigrants, who moved to India in 2003 to work at the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company. From 2005 to 2008 he was South Asia correspondent for The New York Times , based in Mumbai. His column “Letter from India” appears twice a month in The New York Times and its global edition, The International Herald Tribune. He now lives in the village of Verla in Goa, India, and is writing a book about social change in modern India.

When I read articles about India by foreign journalists, my reaction quite often is a face-palm. These articles are usually peppered with inaccuracies, interpretations and conclusions based on a poor understanding of India's complexities, a breathless exaggeration and a niggling lack of authenticity. I have often wondered why these articles are not written by Indians themselves. This is an issue not only in the media, but also in Western academia where topics related to India are not adequately presented from the Indian perspective nor represented by Indians themselves.

In this context, it is refreshing to read Anand's articles. He comes across as being very sincere, empathic and balanced when talking about India. I present a few examples for you to read and judge for yourself:

India Calling

The Special Sting of Personal Terrorism

In Cellphone, India Reveals an Essence

Brilliant Indian Politician gets M Phil from Cambridge University in 9 Months!

The Hindustan Times reports that the Congress Party of India has served a legal notice to The New Indian Express for publishing a report on the Truth about Rahul's M Phil.

Rahul, of course, is Rahul Gandhi aka Raul Vinci, the general secretary of the Congress Party of India.

The Hindustan Times article has this interesting information about the legal notice:

A copy of the letter of Professor Alison Richard, vice-chancellor of University of Cambridge, was attached to the notice. The letter said Rahul was a student of the university as a member of Trinity College from October 1994 to July 1995 and was awarded an M. Phil in Development Studies in 1995.

Apparently, Rahul Gandhi's performance at Cambridge was so brilliant that he earned an M Phil degree in just 9 months! The same Rahul Gandhi who had to get into Delhi's St Stephen's college, under sports category and failed out from there. The same Rahul Gandhi who got into Harvard after a huge monetary donation and was kicked out from there after only 3 months for not being able to perform. The same Rahul Gandhi whose Cambridge University certificate shows that he failed a subject (reproduced in The New Indian Express article.

It would be sweet if the Congress Party's legal notice results in the truth about Rahul's education being settled once for all. That would be quite an irony. But I am not holding my breath for that any time soon.


Bonus video: Dr Subramaniam Swamy talking about Rahul Gandhi's citizenship and education -

Notes from the Future 3 - Introducing Google Lifeline

The following post was published on the The Official Google Blog on October 15th, 2015.

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Introducing Google Lifeline

Posted by A S, Innovation Evangelist


Today I am pleased to present a whole new way of organizing - and searching, of course - all your life's information: Google Lifeline.

Lifeline is a chronological view of every bit of information you have collected in your Google account. Think of it as a really detailed, really accurate and totally searchable personal history.

Lifeline gathers all your personal data and presents it in a well-integrated, intuitive timeline interface. Just click on any point of the timeline and you will be able to read, listen or watch all the data you have collected during that timeframe. You can bring up every email, document, bill, photo, video, purchase, prescription, phonecall from that time period. You can zoom in to narrow down the timeframe to a particular second in time or you can zoom out all the way to include your entire Google lifetime. Your Google lifetime begins when you sign up for a Google account to use any of Google's popular services.

Here are some of the interesting uses that our employees have found for Google Lifeline during our internal tests:

1. Susan, a Mint.com user since the days of its beta opening and long before it was acquired by Google, was able to do a quick search to find out how much she has spent at coffee shops per year, in the last five years. Although she knew that she is a coffee addict, the answer still shocked her.

2. Rob, who uses his Google Checkout-enabled phone to make purchases in grocery stores and restaurants, is able to analyze his entire grocery shopping and eating-out history for the past 5 years for "heart-stoppingly good" items he has purchased and compare it side-by-side to his medical history from Google Health, to discover how his dietary habits affect his health.

3. Melissa was curious to see what her highest electricity consumption in a 24-hour period was and when that happened. Melissa has a Google Powermeter installed in her house and the data of her electricity usage has been integrated into Lifeline. It showed a clear spike in her power consumption on a day in late 2009. Curious to know more about why her power consumption was so high, Melissa zoomed in to the one week period before and after the high-power day and browsed her purchases in Lifeline. It showed that she had bought a brand new big-screen TV, party supplies and the DVD version of the latest Star Trek movie. That reminded Melissa, an avid Trekkie, about the Star Trek party she had hosted for fellow-Trekkies with a marathon showing of every Star Trek episode and movie on her new big-screen TV. Melissa was able to view the photos and videos from that party on the Lifeline - photos and videos that she had uploaded to Picasa, as well as the ones uploaded and shared by all her friends.

4. Ashwini has an unusual hobby - she collects "heartstones", stones which are shaped like hearts. She has picked them up from her hikes and travels all over the world, from undersea dives to tops of mountains to cheap jewellery stores in middle Eastern flea markets. Every time she picks up a new stone, she takes a picture of the stone and uploads it to her online album. Ashwini was browsing her heartstone pictures on Lifeline and she came across her very first stone, which had been a gift from her husband when they had barely known each other for a week! Using Lifeline, she was quickly able to bring up all the emails and text messages she had exchanged with him around that time and re-live the heady days of their budding romance. She was even able to listen to the songs her husband sang to her on her Google Voice voicemail during the days of their courtship. She was able to do all this without leaving the Lifeline page even once.

5. The most romantic Lifeline story is perhaps my own. You are already aware that if you use a GPS-enabled phone, you can record every step you take on a trip to form your personal 'trails' on Google Maps. The feature of viewing photos from a trip as a time-compressed virtual trip on Google Maps or Google Earth is much appreciated and used by our users. Now this information is also available on Google Lifeline. I was analyzing the shared trip data of all the Google employees on Lifeline, when I noticed that one person's trails seemed to intersect my own trails quite often. It appeared that over the years, this person had visited many places either shortly before or after I had been there. There were occasions when we had been in the same place on the same day, perhaps missing each other by mere minutes or by a distance of a few hundred feet! Given Google's significant employee count, I had never come across this person's name before. And given that we worked on opposite coasts, there was little chance of us running into each other in the office hallways or cafeteria. Yet, our travel trails had been intersecting in places far and wide, across the globe, quite often and regularly in the preceding 5 years. The number of intersecting points - in time and space - were high enough to be statistically significant. I shot off an email to this person to share the strange serendipity in our travel trails. I am extremely happy to say that for the past year, our travel trails have not been intersecting, they have been coinciding, in both time and space. And, we hope it will be so forever in the future. I won't claim that I would not have met my fiance, if not for Google Lifeline. The way our trails were intersecting, we were destined to run into each other sooner or later. But Lifeline did help make it sooner rather than later, by helping me see the intersections of our trails in both space and time.


Today I am really excited to open up Lifeline to everybody, to help organize your life's information and access it easily. I can't wait to hear stories of the innovative uses that you will no doubt find for this awesome tool.

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PS: You might also be interested in the first 'Notes from the Future' feature on this blog - My Buddy. This one was published long before anybody had heard about Apple's iPhone. Interestingly, I had originally named it "Google Buddy" until friends advised me to get rid of the Google name.

India's New Face: Narendra Modi in The Atlantic

Over the years, I have read many articles about Narendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat state in India. Most of these articles are written by prejudiced reporters with a blatant (read unhidden, undisguised, obvious) motive to show Modi in a bad light. Despite their prejudices and motives, these journalists can't help reporting about the fabulous job Modi is doing in Gujarat and his highly efficient, corruption-free administration. In fact, Modi's governance is so clean and his quotes are so straight-forward, the reporters have to jump through hoops, indulging in mental and verbal gymnastics in their attempts to show Modi in a bad light. The result is that the journalists end up contradicting themselves within the span of a single article, revealing their own prejudices and casting a shadow on their own authenticity. The latest to join this line of journalists is The Atlantic magazine's correspondent Robert D Kaplan in his April 2009 edition article about Mr Narendra Modi: India’s New Face.

The Atlantic article about Mr Narendra Modi is no different from other articles which hold Modi responsible for the 2002 riots in Gujarat: unsubstantiated accusations and insinuations, with absolutely no evidence. To date, I have not read a single article or report which lays out in detail what it was that Mr Modi or his administration was supposed to do and failed to do, during the 2002 riots. Sure, there are overarching statements that Modi should not have let so many people get killed. But there has never been a detailed, chronological list in any article which says, Modi's administration should have done X1 at time-point Y1, and X2 at time-point Y2 and so on. Bear in mind that since India's independence in 1947, there have been numerous other riots - religious and otherwise, there have been countless other killings - by terrorists and criminals, there have been mass deaths of thousands and millions - by droughts, storms and other calamities both natural and man-made, and there has even been an ethnic cleansing - of Kashmiri pandits from their homeland. These things have taken place in every corner of the country. So, it is not as if India's central and state governments have had unblemished track records in preventing or handling these incidents. In fact, the track record of every administration in India has been pathetic when it comes to facing riots, killings and tragedies. Keeping this in mind, why single out Modi's administration alone, nay Mr Modi alone, as the instigator supreme of all communal riots? The irony here is that the initial provocation for the Gujarat riots was the burning of 57 Hindu pilgrims in a train at Godhra.

At the beginning of this post, I mentioned how journalists who set out to bad-mouth Modi end up contradicting themselves within the span of the same article. Mr Kaplan's article in The Atlantic provides some prime examples of this phenomenon, which I shall shortly demonstrate with quotes taken directly from the article. Perhaps, Mr Kaplan thinks that he is providing a fair and balanced perspective. Perhaps, that is what he set out to do. But the contradictions in his article do not appear fair and balanced precisely because he has let so much of his own prejudices and unsubstantiated accusations color the article.


Quote: He [Modi] said he wasn’t interested in talking about politics, just development. Of course, politics represents freedom, and his momentary lack of interest in politics was not accidental. Modi’s entire governing style is antidemocratic, albeit quite effective, emphasizing reliance on a lean, stripped-down bureaucracy of which he has taken complete personal control, even as he has pushed his own political party to the sidelines, almost showing contempt for it.

Since when did politics equate to freedom alone? And, not wanting to talk about politics equates to being anti-freedom? Is Modi using the power of the army or the police or anti-social elements to administer effectively? No. All his unrivalled administrative authority comes from the absolute trust and faith his citizens have in him. If this is not the very definition of the democratic zenith, what is? So, how can Mr Kaplan term Modi as "antidemocratic"? Due to the "stripped-down" bureaucracy of Modi's administration? When did a vast, blundering bureaucracy become an essential defining feature of democracy? This is the symptom of prejudiced reporting - term efficient administration based on the citizens' support as being antidemocratic. If Mr Kaplan had been truly neutral, he'd have praised Modi for doing what almost no other political leader in India's modern history has been able to do so far. As for the antidemocratic charge, Mr Kaplan himself goes on to say: Is Modi a fascist? Although episodes in his political career and his role in the events of February 2002 suggest as much, the answer is, ultimately, no.


Quote: “There was no Kalinga effect on Modi,” Hanif Lakdawala, a Muslim who runs a human-rights NGO, told me. He was referring to a war fought in the third century B.C. by the Mauryan Empire under King Ashoka against the kingdom of Kalinga on the eastern coast of India. Ashoka’s forces slew 100,000 civilians. Yet the slaughter left Ashoka with so much guilt that he dedicated his life thereafter to nonviolence and the peaceful development of his empire.

In the very next paragraph, there is a contradictory quote: By all accounts, after the riots, he [Modi] manically dedicated himself to development, sleeping less than four hours every night, up at 5 a.m. to check his e-mail and read the local papers, visiting about 3,000 of the 7,000 villages in the state, and empowering the lowest reaches of its bureaucracy through his slogan, “Less government, more governance.”

In other words, after the 2002 riots, Modi did dedicate himself to the "peaceful development of his empire". There has not been a single incident of sectarian violence in Gujarat since the 2002 riots. Elsewhere in the article Kaplan writes, "Gujarat had experienced 10.2 percent annual GDP growth since 2002." This is a classic example of "peaceful development" that any state or country in the world (including the US with all its current economic troubles) would envy.


Quote: Whether it be the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the threat posed by Iran, possible chaos in Pakistan, or Islamic terrorism in Kashmir and in India itself, the global situation reminds Hindus—the overwhelming majority of Indian voters—how much they have to fear from Muslim radicalism, and how much Modi signifies a bulwark against it: not through any specific act nowadays, but through the whole aura of his no-nonsense rule.

So, Mr Modi provides a 'bulwark' against Muslim radicalism and terrorism by nothing more than a 'no-nonsense rule'. What? No middle-of-the-night arrests? No extraordinary renditions? No illegal tapping of citizens' phones? No torture of prisoners? No prison camps outside the borders? Nobody losing their habeas corpus rights? Mr Modi is able to provide a bulwark against radicalism and terrorism simply with a 'no-nonsense rule'? Shouldn't he receive high praise for that? Note that even Western governments including the ones in Europe and the United States are having to deal with Muslim radicalism and terrorism. If what Mr Kaplan writes about Mr Modi's no-nonsense rule is true, it would appear that the Western governments might benefit from learning from Mr Modi!


Quote: Sophia Khan, a human-rights worker, put it bluntly: “He’s a fascist man. We Muslims don’t exist for him. Our neighborhoods are called mini-Pakistans, while the Hindus live where the malls and multiplexes are.”

Another quote: His [Modi's] machine-like efficiency, financial probity, and dynamic leadership of the government bureaucracy have made Gujarat a mecca for development, garnering more internal investment than any other state in India. Migrants, both Hindu and Muslim, from throughout India have been streaming into Gujarat to find work at its expanding factories.

So, if Muslims are able to find jobs (and a better life) in Gujarat, how can someone claim that Muslims don't have good living conditions in Gujarat? The truth is that both Hindus and Muslims have bad as well as good living conditions in India. It is not a function of people's religion. And what do they mean by Muslims "don't exist" for Mr Modi? Do they mean that Mr Modi does not give any special considerations to Muslims or pander to them as a vote bank, like many other politicians in India do? He treats everybody equally and that is a good thing!


Quote: What I encountered in interviews with victims of the 2002 violence was not so much radicalization, but alienation from India, evidenced by their withdrawal into their own communities, their reluctance to venture among Hindus.

What Mr Kaplan does not seem to realize is that this withdrawal and ghettoization of Muslims does not have anything to do with Mr Modi or the Gujarat riots. This is a phenomenon that is observed in most countries where Muslims exist in substantial numbers, but are not the majority. They form ghettos and don't mingle with the other communities, don't take active participation in national life and discourses. This has been observed in UK, France and other Western countries also. Where is Mr Modi's influence in those countries? Was there a 2002 Gujarat riot in those countries also?


Quote: Modi demonstrates how the century can also go very wrong when charismatic politicians use modern electoral tactics and technology to create and exploit social divisions...

Contradictory quote: In fact, Modi has recently gone after the very Hindu nationalists who put him in power, arresting some members of a Hindu-chauvinist group.

Modi got members of some Hindu group arrested? That doesn't sound to me like a person who wants to create and exploit social divisions. That sounds to me like a person who treats everyone equally.


Mr Robert Kaplan seems to have some confusing, theories about why there are any communal tensions between Hindus and Muslims in modern India. One of his claims is that the globalization of India's economy and the opening up of the country to outside world is causing Hindus and Muslims to seek greater self-identity, which is in turn leading to communal tensions. Interesting, but WRONG. A full analysis into the Hindu-Muslim tensions in the Indian subcontinent is beyond the scope of this blog post and my meagre grasp of the matter. So, I will end this post with some quotes in Mr Kaplan's article which speak of the good things about Mr Modi and his administration:


- After taking over the chief ministership in the wake of a disastrous earthquake, in 2001, he has been reelected twice, becoming Gujarat’s longest-serving leader. During his visits to villages, pregnant women regularly touch his feet so that their newborn will be like him. He is so honest that gifts for him are regularly deposited in the state treasury—a far cry from the corruption and nepotism that are so routine in Indian government. Even those Indians who despise Modi’s politics acknowledge his skill and power.

- “I heard you were interested in development here, so here are your answers.” What he gave me was not the usual promotional brochures, but long lists of sourced statistics put together by an aide. Gujarat had experienced 10.2 percent annual GDP growth since 2002. It had eight new universities. In recent years, almost half the new jobs created in India were in Gujarat. The state ranked first in poverty alleviation, first in electricity generation.

- As Atul Tandan, director of the Mudra Institute of Communications, in Ahmedabad, told me, “You have to separate Modi’s political ideology from his management ability. Because there is not a hint of corruption about him, Modi is effective because people believe his decisions are only results-oriented.” Even many Muslims have come to respect Modi for cracking down on the gambling and criminal rackets that have infested some of their communities.

- "I have converted economic development into a mass-movement psychology.” His [Modi's] words echoed through the empty room. “I have a toll-free number where callers hear my recorded voice and can make complaints against the government, and the relevant department must respond within a week.”

- He rolled off his accomplishments: “modern roads, private railroads with double-decker containers, 50,000 kilometers of fiber-optic networks, 2,200 kilometers of gas pipelines, 1,400 kilometers of drinking-water pipelines to 7,000 villages, 24-hour uninterrupted power in rural areas, the first Indian state with private ports, a totally integrated coastal-development plan, two LNG [liquefied natural gas] terminals and two new ones coming on line.”

And finally, the money quote: Vimal Ambani, a prominent, liberal-minded Gujarati businessman, told me, “At the end of the day, Modi still offers the best model for governance in India.”


The fact is that Mr Narendra Modi is the best leader in today's India. He has a proven record of economic development and corruption-free, efficient governance, which cannot be matched by any leader in India's democratic history. His self-less service is beyond any kind of doubts or aspersions. Similar rulers from India's ancient history are still celebrated in Indian folklore and history books. I see no reason why Mr Modi should not be given a chance to replicate his success in Gujarat at the national level, as the Prime Minister of India. BJP, Mr Modi's party, should have nominated him as their prime ministerial candidate in the 2009 general elections. They should have realized that Mr Advani is past his political peak (and, I don't mean in age) and he does not have anything revolutionary to offer to the country. Anyway, what's done cannot be changed now. But I hope to see Mr Narendra Modi at the helm of India's national government sooner than later.


Tailpiece: For another article which similarly sets out to show Mr Modi in a bad light, but can't avoid talking about his good points, read the two-part Rediff Special on The Talented Mr Modi.


Update: I learnt today that Mr Narendra Modi has recently started blogging. You can find his blog here - http://www.narendramodi.com .

Dil Jalta Hai

Dil Jalta Hai (mp3)

This is my own rendering of the 1945 classic song, the great sing Mukesh's very first hit from the movie Pehli Nazar.

Lyrics here.

Costco gets real chapatis

Last weekend, I saw what seemed to be real wheat chapatis in the refrigerated section of a Costco location here. They were called "roti-chapatis".

"Costco chapatis" have been popular among many Indians. What we called Costco chapatis were really the Tortilla-land brand, uncooked flour tortillas. They were much better than the cooked tortillas you find in most stores and very convenient to make. Especially when you have a large group to cater to. However, it's not very healthy as it is made with enriched wheat flour.

Now, Costco seems to have a healthier option for all the lazy Indians out there who won't make their own chapatis from scratch - "roti-chapatis" from Roti-land! From the branding and the packaging, it is definitely targetted at the Indians and Indian-foodies. It's made by the same people in San Diego, who made the Tortilla-land tortillas. The front of the pack says it's made with 'durum wheat floor'. The back says it's made with both enriched wheat flour and durum wheat flour - no word about the relative proportions.

So, what's the verdict on taste? Pretty good. Very similar to home-made chapatis. The size is somewhat smaller than the old flour tortillas. It also costs more - $6.99 for 30 pieces, compared to $6.29 for 44 of the flour tortillas.

Not sure if this is available at all Costco locations. If you find it in yours, definitely try it out.

Unlimited Free Calls With Google Voice

Does your cellphone service have a myFaves or My Circle type of feature? Then you can use Google Voice to make unlimited phone calls. Before I show how, do you know what Google Voice is? Read on...

As an existing Grand Central user, I was invited a couple of days ago to switch to the newest service from Google called Voice. Google bought Grand Central in July 2007, and it took so long for them to release it as their own service. I must say the new Gmail-like interface of Google Voice is extremely elegant and intuitive to use, compared to the old Grand Central interface. In fact, I LOVE the new interface.

Google Voice is essentially a call forwarding service. When you sign-up for the service (it is still not open to the general public - apparently, I'm no longer 'general public' ;-)), you will choose a phone number to be assigned to your account. When people call this number, you can set it up so that it will forward the call to any of your numerous phones simultaneously. You can answer the call from any phone that is close to you. So, you can give out this one number as your permanent phone number to people, and never have to miss a call. When you change your office, home or cell phone number, there is no longer a need to update everyone because your Google Voice number will still be the same and it can be setup to forward calls to your new number. That is the core service.

In addition to the core service, there are a number of other features which make this a very useful thing to sign up for - you can choose to send an incoming call directly to the voice mail and listen-in on the voice mail while it is being recorded, you can cut in on a voice mail while it is being recorded, you can record a personal greeting for every contact in your address book (the service is integrated with your Gmail's Contacts), you can host free conference calls, send free text messages, receive text messages, make very cheap international calls and make free calls to anywhere in the US.

And, you could rig your Google Voice service to make unlimited free calls from your cell phone. Here's how:

1. You need a myFaves or My Circle type of service which lets you make unlimited phone calls from your cell phone to specific phone numbers, which you can designate as your unlimited calls circle.

2. Add your Google Voice number to your myFaves or My Circle unlimited calls circle.

3. Go to your Google Voice page and initiate a call from there, choosing your cell phone as the "Phone to ring". Google Voice will dial out the number you wish to call and it will simultaneously ring your cell phone to connect you to the call. The caller-ID on your cell phone will appear as if the call is coming from your Google Voice number. And since this number is part of your unlimited calls circle, you can talk as long as you want on this call, without using up any of your cell phone minutes. That is how you can make unlimited outgoing calls from your cell phone using the Google Voice interface.

4. You can also use the Google Voice number to receive unlimited incoming calls on your cell phone. To do this, you should add your Google Voice number to your unlimited calls circle. Then, configure your Google Voice service to display your Google Voice number as the caller-ID whenever people call that number, instead of displaying the caller's phone number. Now, every time people call your Google Voice number, your cell phone will only see your Google Voice number as the caller-ID. Since your Google Voice number is part of your unlimited calls circle, the received call will be totally free as well regardless of how long you talk. Only draw back about receiving call this way is that, you lose the ability see the caller's true phone number on your cell phone screen.

Even if you don't use Google Voice to extend your free cell phone minutes, it is still a great service in its own right. If Google can integrate this service with Google Talk and release Google Voice apps for smartphones, that'll be sweet.

Keep an eye out for this service so that you can sign up as soon as they open up to the public. If you are already a Google Voice user and you know of any other cool tricks to extend its utility, leave a comment.

Update on 3/22/2009: If you are too impatient to wait until Google opens up this service to the general public, you can try earning an invite by leaving a funny voice message to the Google Voice team on (408) 72-VOICE. If the Google team likes your message, they will send you an invite. Check out Google Voice on Twitter for more updates.

Star Trek - The Menagerie

I have begun to watch old episodes of Star Trek, starting right from Episode 1 of Season 1. The Full Episodes of Star Trek seasons 1, 2 and 3 are available on CBS.com.

I just finished watching a most interesting episode called The Menagerie, which also happens to be a beautiful piece of science fiction writing. If you have a couple of hours to spare, I encourage you to check out the following two-part video.

The story begins, quite unbelievably, with Mr Spock himself rebelling against his superiors and hijacking the starship Enterprise. This is the episode in which Mr Spock comes into his own and totally outplays Captain Kirk. His last line is just too good: "I see no reason to insult me, Sir. I believe I have been completely logical about the whole affair. That shuts up the smug Captain Kirk, alright.

The Menagerie - Part 1



The Menagerie - Part 2

Cilantro: Put It In Her Taco

"Cilantro cilantro" has been stuck in my head like an insistent song since last evening. This is the most awesome video I've seen in recent days. That's all.

Cilantro: Put It In Her Taco -- powered by Cracked.com

Google Tip Jar - Money saving tips

Google has launched a timely new service for people around the world to share their money saving tips: Tip Jar.

People submit tips and other people will vote on the tips. The idea is that the best tips will bubble up to the top.

Check it out. Share your tips.

143.5 Centimeters of Love

"I apologize for not being as direct as the two previous speakers, but I nevertheless have something to say. I went to a train station today and learned that the distance between railway tracks is always 143.5 centimeters, or 4 feet 8.5 inches. Why this absurd measurement? I asked my girlfriend to find out and this is what she discovered. When they built the first train carriages, they used the same tools as they had for building horse-drawn carriages. And why that distance between the wheels on carriages? Because that was the width of the old roads along which the carriages had to travel. And who decided that roads should be that width? Well, suddenly, we are plunged back into the distant past. It was the Romans, the first great road builders, who decided to make their roads that width. And why? Because their war chariots were pulled by two horses, and when placed side by side, the horses they used at the time took up 143.5 centimeters.

"So the distance between the tracks I saw today, used by our state-of-the-art high-speed trains, was determined by the Romans. When people went to the United States and started building railways there, it didn't occur to them to change the width and so it stayed as it was. This even affected the building of space shuttles. American engineers thought the fuel tanks should be wider, but the tanks were built in Utah and had to be transported by train to the Space Center in Florida, and the tunnels couldn't take anything wider. And so they had to accept the measurement that the Romans had decided was the ideal. But what has all this to do with marriage?"

I paused. Some people were not in the slightest bit interested in railway tracks and had started talking among themselves. Others were listening attentively, among them Marie and Mikhail.

"It has everything to do with marriage and with the two stories we have just heard. At some point in history, someone turned up and said: When two people get married, they must stay frozen like that for the rest of their lives. You will move along side by side like two tracks, keeping always that same distance apart. Even if sometimes one of you needs to be a little farther away or a little closer, that is against the rules. The rules say: Be sensible, think of the future, think of your children. You can't change, you must be like two railway tracks that remain the same distance apart all the way from their point of departure to their destination. The rules don't allow for love to change, or to grow at the start and diminish halfway through - it's too dangerous. And so, after the enthusiasm of the first few years, they maintain the same distance, the same solidity, the same functional nature. your purpose is to allow the train bearing the survival of the species to head off into the future: your children will only be happy if you stay just as you were - 143.5 centimeters apart. If you're not happy with something that never changes, think of them, think of the children you brought into the world.

"Think of your neighbors. Show them that you're happy, eat roast beef on Sundays, watch television, help the community. Think of society. Dress in such a way that everyone knows you're in perfect harmony. Never glance to the side, someone might be watching you, and that could bring temptation; it could mean divorce, crisis, depression.

"Smile in all the photos. Put the photos in the living room, so that everyone can see them. Cut the grass, practice a sport - oh, yes, you must practice a sport in order to stay frozen in time. When sport isn't enough, have plastic surgery. But never forget, these rules were established long ago and must be respected. Who established these rules? That doesn't matter. Don't question them, because they will always apply, even if you don't agree with them."

- The Zahir by Paulo Coelho

Fresh Pomegranate Juice!

Fresh pomegranate juice! I got to taste it when I was in Bangalore last month. I have to tell you the fresh pom juice kicks the packed stuff you get here in the US many times over. I don't know if it was the freshness of the juice or the variety of fruit used to make it, I was just bowled over by the taste. It was brimming with fresh sweetness compared to the stale tartness you get in packed pom juice in the US.

Tourist Spots around Bengaluru

This spreadsheet is so awesome, I just had to share with my readers. Visitors and residents of Bangalore city will find it very useful. It lists all the tourist spots and places of interest, from 50 kilometers to 580 kilometers from Bangalore. It shows the distance of the spot, what type of place it is, what facilities are available there, where is the closest petrol bunk (gas station in Americanese), best times to visit and number of days needed to see the place. Totally awesome.

Here's the link: Tourist Spots Around Bengaluru

Google Contacts - Merge & Search

If you are a frequent Gmail user, you should check out the 'merge' option in your Google Contacts. Most people we communicate with have more than one email address. Due to the way Gmail adds every email ID you write to its address book (Contacts), you might have more than one entry in Contacts for many people. Now you can select multiple entries belonging to the same person and merge them together in Google Contacts to create one neat address book entry, without losing any information. Give it a try. I was able to remove almost a 100 duplicate entries from my list.

Google contacts has also vastly improved its search feature. Just type in any letters or numbers in the search bar, and it will search every field of your address book for those. So now, you can search your address book by name, email address, mailing address, phone number, instant messenger ID, etc.

India Notes - January 2009

I flew into India at 1:30 AM on Jan 3rd. I will be flying out of India, back to the US, on Saturday night, technically Sunday morning, at 2:30 AM on Jan 25th. Woke up this morning (Friday) with an overwhelming sense of impending loneliness, of more days and months to be spent away from family and friends. I have been flying in and out of India so many times since April 2000, and in all these years, I have never felt this way. Strange that I should feel it now.

During this trip, more than at any other time, I really felt the value and goodness of being close to family and friends. This is perhaps because my life in the US has been lonelier than ever, off late.

The new international airport at Bengaluru cannot hold a candle to most domestic airports in the US in terms of size and facilities offered to passengers/visitors. It has been built with an extremely poor vision (read NO vision) of the current and future demands for air travel in and out of Bengaluru. The sky bridges through which people board flights have been built so close together that if a medium-sized international flight lands, the two bridges on its either side cannot be used by other aircraft due to space issues.

Having said that, the new airport is so much better than the old one. Despite the longer distance of this airport from most city locations, getting out of the airport after landing and getting into the airport to board are a breeze. After I landed, I had cleared immigration, picked up my baggage and was out of the airport in under 45 minutes! That is the fastest I have ever gotten out of the airport in Bengaluru.

The display terminals at Hong Kong airport and the boarding passes all spelled the name of my home city as Bengaluru. In the city itself, road signs and name boards have slowly started to appear which spell the name of the city as Bengaluru. It is not too long from now when all signs and boards will say Bengaluru. Most of us old-timers, of course, continue to refer to the city as Bangalore when we talk in English and as Bengaluru when we talk in an Indian language, as we always did.

I used the local public transport BMTC buses several times during this visit. I am impressed by the frequency and connectivity of the buses. They have done a good job on this front. The constructions of the metro rail tracks is plodding its way slowly and we still don't know when it will become operational (not any time soon!). But when the metro train does start running, things will be even better in Bengaluru.

The value of Indian rupee is much lower, compared to the cost of many goods and services. Combined with the fact that most small businesses still don't accept debit or credit cards, you end up having to carry a lot of cash in hand, especially when you are travelling.

Having said that, India is a great place for young people with higher income levels (such as the software professionals) to enjoy life. A lot of goods and services, which would have been considered luxuries for the upper middle-classes some 15 years ago, are well within their purchasing power. In fact, the gap between the truly rich and the truly poor is being fast filled up with a sufficiently well-off middle class whose numbers are swelling everyday. This is in sharp contrast to the US where the gap between the rich and poor has been steadily increasing in recent years, with a gradual decrease in the numbers of the middle class. Hopefully, the new administration in the US, under the new president Barack Obama will be able to reverse this trend.

Watched the inauguration of the new US president Barack Obama (including the fumbled oath!) live on a couple of Indian news channels. The inaugural speech was impressive. Obama has an appearance and a presence which inspires confidence in Americans from coast to coast, and even non-Americans around the world. Wish India could have a leader like that. The only person in India right now who could inspire that kind of confidence and who could deliver the results, is the current chief minister of Gujarat, Mr Narendra Modi. Unfortunately, the political setup in India is somewhat different from the US. Mr Modi will not be able to become the prime minister of India based on purely personal merit and outstanding track record (which is much better than even Obama's), the way Obama was able to become the president of the US. In fact, this comparison of the obstacles in Mr Modi's path in India and the path that Obama took to the highest office in the US, is a classic representation of the challenges faced by any talented person who wants to become successful in India compared to the challenges in the US for a similar endeavor.

Indian national cable news channels have horrible presentation. Most of them have two or three rows of constantly scrolling text at the bottom, and sometimes even a side-bar. These distracting elements often show news headlines which are not truly 'breaking'. And when they are not showing news headlines, they scroll text ads! It is extremely annoying and spoils the whole experience of watching the news. A row of scrolling text at the bottom should be used only for truly important, high-priority breaking news. Hasn't anybody told them that? Don't they realize how bad their current design is?

The other annoying thing about Indian news is the way the media people are allowed to mob any newsworthy individual who has been arrested, whenever he or she is transported from one place to another (like say from the holding cell to the court). The media personnel are not allowed to mob and surround politicians, movie stars or any other celebrities who have not been arrested. They are kept at a reasonable distance and the newsworthy subject has sufficient personal space to move around. But when it comes to people who have been arrested, there is a chaotic mob if police security personnel, camera men, reporters and interviewers jostling like crazy. The latest person to star in this mob drama on TV is Satyam's ex-CEO, Mr Ramalinga Raju who confessed to high fraud.

On the personal front, it was very nice to meet my 4-month old niece. She is such a cute and smiling baby, already big for some of the clothes I bought, which are supposed to fit 6-month old babies. Good thing I also got a few bigger clothes. The baby is too young to be afraid of anyone. So, she lets pretty much anybody hold her and make her smile. We had her naming ceremony on Jan 21st, and we finalized on a name only on the day before the ceremony, when the decorator for the event pressed us for a name because he had to put it up on the wall of the party hall. Apparently short, sweet, satisfactory female Indian names starting with 'B' (due to astrological requirements!) are much harder to come by, than those starting with 'R' or 'S'. My sister, the baby's mother, finally chose the name Bhavyasri. Bhavya means 'grand' in Sanskrit.

Visited Goa for the first time. Had a real good, fun trip with a few friends. We went on a day trip to the church of St Francis of Assisi and the popular sea-side fort, and a popular beach on the first day. In the evening, we went on a typical Indian hour-long cruise - over crowded, people dancing helter-skelter all over the place. On the second day, we went on a boat trip to a small isolated cove, where we did some swimming and snorkeling. Except for one other party of foreigners, we pretty much had the cove to ourselves. After that, we went parasailing, rode a water scooter (they don't let us ride it on our own) and went on a ride called the banana ride. The 'banana' is an inflatable boat which is shaped like a long tube (hence the name 'banana'). You just sit on the tube one behind the other and the tube is towed out to the sea by a motor boat. Once you are in the middle of the sea, the boat driver turns the boat so that the tube on which you are sitting is flipped and you are all thrown into the sea! It was so much fun being dunked into the sea many miles from the shore! On the third day, we rented a couple of motorbikes and went on a long ride across half of Goa. On the last day, we spent over three hours playing in the water at Sernabatim beach, which is very pretty and has very less crowd.

Getting BSNL broadband connection was a relatively quick and painless process. But the Internet service itself is not very stable and dependable. There are occasional intermittent outages of several seconds to several minutes. Can be a very frustrating experience when this happens in the middle of using the Internet.

Managed to sell my beloved 1984 model class motorcycle Bullet. Well, the transaction will be completed in early February, but the buyer and the terms are finalized. I never got to fully enjoy that bike - having been sent to the US within a few months after buying it in August 2000. Tried to hang on to it all these years, getting relatives and friends to look after it. But it didn't work out as well as I'd have liked. So, had to let it go with much reluctance. Had a nice license plate number too... CKD 3690. Vehicles in Karnataka (and most parts of India) don't even have such numbers any more!

After returning to the US, missed family, friends and my country a lot. It felt so good to be the part of my country and its people, to experience that lifestyle for the past few days. Missing India can sometimes be as deeply intense as missing a woman you love. Felt totally out of touch with classes and studies after returning. Still playing catch up. But got back into the loner lifestyle surprisingly quickly... Nevertheless, I don't want to be here. Want to be there.