National Public Internet

Here's my submission to Google's Project 10 to the 100th. The idea is presented by answering a series of questions (bolded below) from Google.


National Public Internet


What one sentence best describes your idea? (maximum 150 characters)

Internet connectivity as free, as ubiquitous and easy as FM radio.


Describe your idea in more depth. (maximum 300 words)

Internet for Everyone from National Public Internet (NPI).

The future of the Internet is that basic wireless connectivity will be as free (of cost), ubiquitous and easily available as FM radio. This will co-exist with a paid tier of premium Internet service that offers ultra high speed connectivity. But the basic service will be free. Just as FM radio is free and easily available, where as premium video channels on cable cost some money.

The project aims to:

1. Create a non-profit nationwide Internet service provider organization (called NPI), analogous to the non-profit public radio company NPR. It is very important to conceive and run this as a non-profit organization.
2. A nationwide network infrastructure on which to provide the basic free wireless Internet service to everybody.

Why non-profit?

The focus and energies of NPI should be on smoothly running an extremely important and vital nationwide network infrastructure to provide free wireless Internet. The focus should never be distracted or biased by profit-making considerations or for creating shareholder wealth. The organization should be strictly independent of any profit-making corporation. It should also be independent of incumbent profit-making internet service provider companies, including cable and telecoms.

The organizational structure for NPI would be inspired by and based on the NPR model of city-level stations working together to provide nationwide coverage of high quality programming.

Network Infrastructure

NPI should be the preferred model for providing internet service on the White Space spectrum. It should directly connect to the Internet Backbone. It won't be dependent on incumbent telecoms. At the city-level, the main vehicle for the Internet signals could be the ‘white space’ spectrum. At the local block-level, there could be repeater routers deployed, as required.



What problem or issue does your idea address? (maximum 150 words)

1. Inadequate Internet connectivity in general. Extremely poor wireless Internet connectivity in particular.
2. Internet connectivity not managed and provided as a nationwide public resource like roads and highways, accessible and useful to everybody for free.

If your idea were to become a reality, who would benefit the most and how? (maximum 150 words)

1. EVERYBODY in the country would benefit from significantly increased connectivity for learning, information access and communication.
2. Emergency responders and service providers.
3. Model could be replicated in other countries with poor Internet connectivity.

What are the initial steps required to get this idea off the ground? (maximum 150 words)

1. Build a campus-wide or city-wide network as a proof of concept for the specific design and technology to be used by NPI.
2. Design the organizational structure and start building out.

Describe the optimal outcome should your idea be selected and successfully implemented. How would you measure it? (maximum 150 words)

If basic wireless Internet connectivity is available for free and easily to everybody and in every place where FM radio signals are available, this project is a success.

Universal Time

My previous post on Timing of Love has inspired this post.

What I am about to post is extremely profound knowledge. Many people go through entire lifetimes without ever realizing or understanding this. Even among people who realize or understand this, there are very few who actually put this information to any use. And among those who put it to any use, there are extremely few (one in millions or billions of people) who puts it to consistent use. This is literally the most open secret of the ages.

1. When you feel that you are just "not getting the timing right", that is the most obvious sign that you are not in alignment with Universal Time.


2. Universal Time is the timing of the Universe itself, it is the Universal Rhythm. Every single thing in the Universe takes place exactly in Universal Time. Never sooner. Never later. Never faster. Never slower. And absolutely never against the Universal Time.


3. Universal Time is not a fate or destiny which does not give you a choice. It is not something over which you have no influence. You are part of the Universe. So, you are one of the many infinite factors which determine and influence Universal Time. You can most definitely influence it. You do most definitely influence it - whether you know it or not, whether you want it or not.


4. How much of an influence you have over Universal Time is determined by how big or powerful a person you are in Universal terms. "Big and powerful" is not always measured by physical strength or material riches or political power, although these factors are indeed part of the many criteria.


5. Getting the timing right is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, key to success. Getting the timing right simply means being in alignment with Universal Time.


6. The more in alignment you are with Universal Time, the more successful and powerful you are. Consequently, the greater influence you can have on Universal Time.


7. The greater influence you have on Universal Time, the less need you will have to actually exercise that influence. That is because you will already be in alignment with the Universal Time, and so, things will already be automatically going your way without any special effort on your part.


8. The best way to be in alignment with Universal Time is to meditate.


9. The pinnacle of being in alignment with Universal Time is to know and experience that there is no Universe or Time outside of you, separate from you.

Google Hindu Calendar

Update on 12/30/2009:
The Google Hindu Calendar linked and described in this post has been renamed as Google Hindu Calendar - MST, for Mountain Standard Timezone of USA.

If you have a Google account, you can add this Google Hindu Calendar - MST to your Google account using this link: Add Google Hindu Calendar.

To simply view the calendar in your web browser use this link: View Google Hindu Calendar. After viewing, if you want to add this Google Hindu Calendar - MST to your Google account, there is a button at the bottom-right corner of the screen.

For calendars of other timezones, visit this link: Google Hindu Calendar with Timezones.

Original Post below:
Google Calendar was released on April 13th, 2006. This is a few days later than April 1st, on which date Google traditionally launches new products. More information: Google Calendar Overview.

I have created a Hindu Calendar on Google Calendar. This calendar is publicly shared. Just search for "Hindu Calendar" in Google's public calendar search and look for Hindu Calendar / Panchangam by Libran Lover. Click on the "Add Calendar" button to access it.

With this, you can easily access the important Hindu calendar information about each day. As of today, the calendar has only information about important Hindu festivals from April to December 2006. There is a little more information for the month of April (such as amAvAsya, pUrNima, ekAdashi, sankatahara chaturthi, etc.). In the coming days, I will be adding as much information as I can from the Hindu Panchangam.

This will be an ongoing effort. Until some professional Panchangam maker like Kalnirnay publishes in the iCal format, updating the Google Hindu Calendar will be a manual effort. As such, I need help in entering information into this calendar. If you would like to help, please write to my Google mail id libranlover.

Hope this calendar will be useful for everyone, all over the world. As the Google Calendar application grows rich with additional functionality, this Hindu Calendar will grow in tandem, with more features and lots of useful information.

I wish Google would provide an easy link / URL for the calendar, by which it could be shared and accessed by everyone. Until Google provides such an easy URL, the easy ways to access a particular calendar is to be invited by the calendar's owner or to search for public calendars. Meanwhile, here are a couple of links to the Hindu Calendar, if you can figure out how to use them:

Hindu Calendar HTML link
Hindu Calendar iCal address
Hindu Calendar XML feed.

Project Rajkumar

The veteran superstar of Kannada cinema, Dr Rajkumar is no more. He passed away on April 12th, 2006, following a cardiac arrest.

For those of us who grew up watching his movies, this is the passing of an era in the history of Kannada cinema, in the history of Karnataka state. He is undoubtedly the most popular Kannada artist of all time. What is most striking about him is not just his charismatic on-screen presence, not the acting skills, not even his gifted background singing talent. What is most striking is the incredible simplicity of his off-screen life. No flamboyance, no arrogance. So unlike many of his less-talented-but-equally-popular contemporaries.

His career spanned almost half a century, with over 200 movies! That is an incredible average of around 5 or more movies every year, starting from 1954 until 2000. What a prolific career! As I scroll through his filmography, I see an enormous range and variety of roles, so many high-quality, highly entertaining, super-hit movies! The filmographies of the best and most popular Hollywood actors pale in comparison.

Sometime after I heard the news of Dr Raj's death, I visited IMDb.com, the "Earth's Biggest Movie Database" to check out his filmography. Unfortunately, there was not quite enough information on Dr Raj's page on IMDb.com. There was some erroneous information, and not even his name was listed properly and in an easily identifiable manner.

In order to compile exhaustive information about Dr Raj's movies and to do proper justice to his prolific career on IMDb.com, I have started a Wiki project called Project Rajkumar. If you are a fan of Dr Rajkumar's movies, please do visit the home page of Project Rajkumar, and share your precious knowledge about his movies with us. The idea is that, all this knowledge will ultimately end up on IMDb.com for the benefit of many generations to come.

I hope Project Rajkumar will turn out to be Dr Raj's online fans' way of paying homage to the great actor. This is certainly far better than the mindless violence that some fans in Bangalore are indulging in.

To be so... let it be so!

I am starting a new work day right now. So far, I have attended the daily morning meeting, and sent out three work-related emails. I am sitting at my desk now. I should really get started on my work. But my mind is on an article and a story I need to write. I know that I will have a good (if I say so myself) article and story in hand, if I spend the rest of the day writing them. Ah, to be a full-time writer!

It is not every morning that I am in the mood to write something. There are mornings when I just want to get on with my tech job. There are mornings when I wish I could be doing some simple menial job which needs no thinking. There are mornings when I wish I was cooking in a restaurant kitchen. There are mornings when I think I should be on the radio running a talk show for Bangalore. There are mornings when I want to be out travelling. There are mornings when I don't even want to get out of bed. Ah, to be so filthy rich that I could do whatever I wanted with my mornings!

Here's a dream I have had for a long time now. I am putting it out into the Universe for what it's worth: I am a filthy rich writer. I have a few bestsellers against my name which earn royalty every day. I have enough money to live comfortably and travel in style. I spend half the year travelling, meeting people, collecting stories. I spend the other half of the year living in a peaceful country setting, putting those stories to paper. These stories will become bestsellers, earning me more royalty. Once a week or so, I teach at a local college, mentoring, encouraging and setting free impressionable young minds. I have interests, resources and hands in a few other projects - movie productions, tech start-ups, a restaurant. I have a happy, healthy, content and loving family. Ah, to be so... let it be so!

ENTIRE PORN COMPANY FOR SALE !!!

There is an entire porn company for sale on Ebay.com with a starting bid of $100,000!
Here's the link: ENTIRE PORN COMPANY FOR SALE !!!

If I were to buy this outfit, I would not spend any time or resources on the typical run-of-the-mill brainless porn. I would concentrate on:

1. Smart porn: porn with real stories, emotions and aesthetics. As opposed to the kind of porn which seems to be made for retards with no brains.

2. Porn for ladies and couples: most of the porn is made for the average male. A large market for ladies and couples is mostly untapped, I think.

3. Quickie Porn for handhelds: A set of 1-, 2-, 3- minute clips made exclusive for hand-held gadgets like cell phones, PDA, handhelds. Easily downloadable from my website for a small price. Designed for quickies.

4. Amateur porn: you make, we buy and distribute; on a one-time payment basis or royalty-sharing basis (special cases ONLY). Facial anonymity option available. Facial ONLY!

5. People next door porn: movies with "average-looking" (NOT ugly!) people. Not enhanced and artificial same old pornstar-looking people.

6. Porn-based reality series.

7. Tie-up with a gaming software company to produce porn-based games.

8. Introduce at least one new hottie (never seen before seen in the industry) every year.

I think that should give me a significant edge in the porn business.

Notes from the Future - 2 (My Buddy)

Important: As far as I know, the device called Buddy does not exist in the year 2005. The name, design, concept, features and functions of the gadget named Buddy (also referred to as My Buddy) are the intellectual property of Libran Lover alone, pending patent processing. Any unauthorized use of the name, design, concept, features and functions of the Buddy will be in violation of the law governing patents, copyrights and goodwill. If anyone wants to turn the concept of this fantasy device Buddy into a reality, they are welcome to contact Libran Lover.

Notes from the Future - 1 (My Buddy)

My Buddy as a Universal Phone:
My Buddy is the coolest phone you have ever heard about. For starters, it is a VoIP cum old-fashioned conventional phone. Since we have Wi-Fi Net access throughout the city, all my calls get routed directly through the Internet. When I am in areas with no Internet access, Buddy functions as an old-fashioned cell phone. The calls placed through the Internet are all free. No kidding! This is the day and age when Internet phones are the rule, and conventional phones are the rare exceptions. Literally everyone I know uses an Internet phone. So, calling them on the Buddy is free, no matter where they are in the world. It is like the free voice chat of the old days. Except, the clarity of these phones are like no voice chat you'd experienced in 2005.

The second cool thing about phones these days is that, we no longer have phone numbers. That's right. When all the phones moved to the Internet, there was no need to be tied to hard to remember numbers, based on country codes and area codes. All you need is a person's chat id, and you can call them on your phone. The address book on My Buddy is full of people's chat/email ids. Absolutely no numbers. I don't need anything else to get in touch with people. And, as long as the person I want to talk to is logged on to the Net using any device - a cell phone, a home phone, a computer, a handheld computer, a music player, a Buddy, whatever device, and s/he is logged on using the chat/email id I am trying to reach, I will be able to reach her/him.

Gone are the days when caller-id on the phone meant displaying only the person's name. Today, when I receive a phone call, I can see any information about the caller that she/he wishes to reveal. It is a caller-profile. Not just a caller-id. The caller-profile could include her/his picture, base location, current location, current status (in class, in a meeting, sleeping, travelling, out of reach, whatever), her/his business card, blog, website, entire history!

The phone functionality of My Buddy is no different from the chat clients of the old days. In fact, the phone interface on the screen even looks a lot like the olden days chat clients... only it's more ditzy and feature-rich. Needless to say I can use the Buddy to not only talk to friends who are afar, but also to send text messages, multimedia messages with pictures, music, video, even live video! I can do everything but teleport myself or my caller through My Buddy.

My Buddy is my phone wherever I am. It is my cell phone, it is my home phone, it is my office phone and my car phone. It is truly a universal phone.

My Buddy as a Universal Modem:
A lot of people use the Buddy, coupled with a wireless router, as a universal modem in their homes. When they are home, they just place the Buddy in a dock of their wireless router. The wireless router then connects every device in the house - every computer, conventional-type phone, camera, TV, music system, even the cooking range and oven, dishwasher, refrigerators, washing machine and drier - to the Internet.

You may wonder why we need a modem and a wireless router if every corner of the city and every room of the home is already blanketed with wireless broadband from our Internet Service Provider. This is where the concept of needing less number of static IP addresses comes into the picture.

We are charged for our Internet access based on the number of devices with static IP addresses we use. I already told you that I pay 50 bucks for 5 static IP addresses. But the number of Internet-connected devices my 4-member family has in our home and in our pockets, could easily be upto 15! I do not want to pay $150 for 15 static IP addresses. I don't need so many static addresses either. This is where the Buddy steps into help us.

My wife, our two kids and I have a Buddy apiece, each with a static IP address. We have an old Buddy at home - my very first Buddy - which always sits in the wireless router's dock. This device has our fifth IP address and uses it to connect every other device in the home to the Internet. My faithful old Buddy channels enough bandwidth for all the devices in my home to share! The is why it is our universal modem.

My Buddy as a Universal Media Player:
My Buddy has a sophisticated sound system built-in. This sound system makes my voice calls great. But to really appreciate it, you have to listen to its musical output. This palm-sized unit is one of the best music systems ever created by humans. The same is true for the Buddy's video system too. The sound and video systems, combined with the versatility and portability, make the Buddy a true universal media players.

With the Buddy, there are no hassles of downloading and storing any music or video files. Most of the times I play multimedia directly from the Internet. All the radio stations now broadcast on the Internet waves. I can choose to play only the audio or the audio-and-video content.

I can listen to the music, holding the Buddy upto my ear like a phone. I can listen through the ear phones. I place the Buddy in a dock which is connected to speakers which can blast you away. I have such a dock and speaker system in my office. At home, my speaker systems are already connected to the Buddy through the wireless router.

I have a dock for the Buddy in my car as well. I don't need a separate music player for the car. As soon as I enter my car, I place the Buddy in the dock and play anything I want on the car's speakers. I can even route my phone calls to the car's speakers, with a mic built into my steering wheel. When there is an incoming call and I wish to answer it, the Buddy automatically mutes the music and routes the call to the speakers. It is really convenient.

Incidentally, the Buddy is also my GPS navigation system. I avoid using that functionality when I am on the road. I study the map before setting out. Once I am on the road, I just let the road take me where it goes. My wife teases me about being a typical man who will not take directions from his own Buddy! :-)

I can watch video on the Buddy's sharp and clear screen. Or, I can choose to connect it to my TV or computer monitor via a dock, and watch the video on an LCD screen. Like the speaker system, all the TV and computer monitors in my home are connected to the Buddy through the wireless router. And like music, all the video these days is available on the Internet. All the movies and music videos, as well as all the TV programs, and sports. DVDs, VCDs, VHS tapes have all become obsolete. Nobody keeps any sort of disks in their homes. Businesses like Blockbuster and Hollywood video have completely gone online and serve their movies through the Internet. And, we stream it into our TVs via the Buddy.

My Buddy as a Universal Remote:
I can use my Buddy to control any, I literally mean any device in my home. When I bring home a new device, like say a new TV, I download the remote control software for the TV onto the Buddy. Voila! My Buddy can now function as the TV's remote control. The touch-pad screen of the Buddy displays a picture of the TV remote, and I can touch it to control the TV. We can do that for pretty much every device in our home including the cooking range, the washing machine, the refrigerator, the dishwasher, etc. We can turn on or turn off the stove in the kitchen, while we are in the living room watching a movie.

In my home, we have stored the remote control software for all the devices in my old Buddy, which acts as the modem. All the other Buddies in the house can now interact with the old Buddy to access the remote control interface of any device. So, we don't have to store the remote control software in every Buddy we have in our home. Yet, we can control any device using any Buddy.

My Buddy as a Personal Computer:
For most of my computing needs, I don't require a big computer with a powerful processor and lots of memory. The memory and processing power of the Buddy, combined with its powerful web browser, are quite adequate. This is true for most other people as well. My Buddy has put the "personal" back into PCs (personal computers). How much more personal can you get with computers than the Buddy? Unless you embed a computer within your body!

Gone are the days when people stored their data files on personal hard drives. Most of the files are now stored on the Net. We have all our emails, media files (music, pictures, video), work data files (documents, spreadsheets, databases), etc. on the Internet. Even many of the software applications which are needed to work with these files are not installed on our personal machines. Web-based applications are all the rage now. I can do word processing, spreadsheets, database functions, graphics, etc. using free applications which are served to me over the Internet. As such, I hardly use 50% of the 100GB flash memory available on my Buddy.

We have only one conventional desktop computer in our home. We have it because my kids and I play a lot of computer games, which require more processing power and memory. Sometimes I use that computer as my software lab. We have LCD monitors or TVs with wireless keyboards and mouse devices in almost every room in the house, except for the kitchen and the bathrooms. We use these to connect to the Internet through our wireless router and the old Buddy, or to work with our personal Buddies. So, our Buddies pretty much take care of all our computing needs.

You see how useful and ubiquitous the Buddy has become in our lives? I bet by now even you have started to think of the Buddy as a "he" or a "she"!

Concluded for now.

Notes from the Future - 1 (My Buddy)

Important: As far as I know, the device called Buddy does not exist in the year 2005. The name, design, concept, features and functions of the gadget named Buddy (also referred to as My Buddy) are the intellectual property of Libran Lover alone, pending patent processing. Any unauthorized use of the name, design, concept, features and functions of the Buddy will be in violation of the law governing patents, copyrights and goodwill. If anyone wants to turn the concept of this fantasy device Buddy into a reality, they are welcome to contact Libran Lover.

My city is blanketed with cheap wireless Internet access at broadband speeds. I can access the Internet from literally ANYWHERE in the city, even when I am travelling in my car or the bus. Almost overnight, this has revolutionized my lifestyle.

The Wi-Fi Net access is not free... yet. We all know it will be free at sometime in the future. But for now, it is not costly either.

Back in 2005, I used to pay a little over 50 US dollars for my cable broadband service alone. In addition, I had other expenses like a big cell phone bill (for voice and text messages), and a bigger international calls bill for my calls to India. Cable TV services were extra, of course.

Compare that to what I have today. I pay my Internet service provider (ISP) 50 US dollars to access wireless Internet using gadgets, with upto 5 unique IP addresses, from anywhere in the world. And this takes care of all my communication needs. Yes, I do mean all: my cell phone, my long distance phone calls, my home phone, my cable TV and computer.

If I want to access Wi-Fi with more devices, having more IP addresses, I have to pay extra. But as you will see below, 5 IP addresses is an overkill for me. By the way, these are static IP addresses I am talking about. IPv6 has made it possible for everybody in the world and everyone of their devices to have static IP addresses. What's more, intelligent gadget design has actually made it possible for an individual to need fewer and fewer IP addresses. You will read more about it below.

First, I want to introduce you to my Buddy. It (I always have to remember to refer to this gadget as it and not a he or a she like most people do. Irritating!) is actually called a Buddy 6-Gen. We just refer to it as Buddy. And it is an extraordinary palm-sized, cellphone-sized device. I just got the newest sixth generation model for $399. I know that is too much money for a gadget which will probably become old design in 6-8 months, and I did not want to buy it. But my wife bought it for my birthday last month, and I am glad she did. My Buddy is a classy black device, with a FULL screen front. That's right, a FULL touchscreen front. No physical keys (well, except for four). The virtual keys appear on the touchscreen whenever I need them. And the screen is so big, clear and beautiful!

Before you get too bored with the physical description of my Buddy, let me list its functions:

1. It is my wallet - stores my ID, driver's license, credit cards, debit cards, cheque book, library card, club cards, house keys, car keys, desk keys, auto and medical insurance cards, and I don't even remember what else. In short, it stores everything I had in my physical wallet in the old days (including pics of my wife and kids), except physical currency notes and coins.

2. It is my universal phone - cell phone, home phone, office phone, car phone.

3. It is my universal modem - connects every device in my home to the Internet.

4. It is my universal media player - personal audio player, car audio player, home audio player, including radio. But it is not limited to audio. It has video functionality also.

5. It is my universal remote control - for every device in my home.

6. It is my personal computer with a 100GB of flash memory (that's right; no spinning hard disk).

My Buddy as a Wallet:
When I receive a card, any card (credit card, insurance card, library card), I call the issuing organization using through my Buddy and enter the card number. They send back a highly encrypted secure digital key, which is stored in my Buddy. Now my Buddy is as good as the card. I lock away the card in my home. When I need to use the card... for example, when I have to use my credit card at a store, I press a button on my Buddy and it sends out a Bluetooth signal with my encrypted secure key. The store's receiver accepts the key, validates it and completes my purchase. The whole process takes less than a minute to complete.

So, can anybody who steals my Buddy use my credit card? Yes and no. Yes, if I am foolish enough to leave my Buddy open to hacking. No, if I have chosen my security setting with care. The Buddy offers different levels of security which are all optional:

1. You cannot start or use the Buddy in any manner without entering a password or placing your finger on the fingerprint sensor or both.

2. You cannot start or use any or all of the software applications or cards stored in the Buddy without entering a password or placing your finger on the fingerprint sensor or both.

3. The password entering and fingerprint sensing can be done on the Buddy or the store's system or on both.

As you can see, there are many levels and combinations of security settings possible. If I wanted maximum security on something, I would do ALL of the following:

1. Setup my Buddy to start only after entering right password and using the correct finger on the fingerprint sensor of the Buddy.

2. In addition, setup my card or software application to be usable only after entering the right password and using the correct finger on the fingerprint sensor of the Buddy, for the second time.

3. In addition, configure my Buddy so that it is necessary for me to use a password and finger print on the store's system, for the third time.

This gives me three levels of protection, using passwords and fingerprints. But most of us don't bother to have such high security. We just use our fingerprints on the Buddy - fingerprint to switch on the Buddy, and fingerprint scan on the Buddy only for financial transactions. We are not comfortable leaving our finger prints on store machines.

Just as every card has an ecrypted secure digital key, our homes, cars, desks... literally anything which needs a lock and key has an electronic lock now. And, each of these locks can be configured to open with a Bluetooth signal from the Buddy and/or our fingerprints. For my home and car, I use the digital key from my Buddy and my fingerprint.

I guess I don't have to tell you how my wife and kids' pictures are stored on the Buddy. In fact, the Buddy has dozens of pictures stored on its flash memory. However, I have thousands more pictures stored on the Internet, and I can access them all using my Buddy.

As for physical currency... I have stopped carrying them. There are still some (mostly older) people who walk around with physical money. I used to do that too during the initial days that I started using the Buddy, but then I found that I almost never had to use the physical money anywhere. So, I put them away in the locker at my home. I think they will be valuable antiques sometime in the future... probably before I die.

Rest of My Buddy's features continued in Notes from the Future - 2...

Two-Minute Cooking School: Prospectus

The idea of the Two-Minute Cooking School is to present a recipe which can be learnt in just two minutes!

Almost all the recipes are for Indian dishes. The recipes may not be 100% authentic, the way it is made in your state, village or home. However, they are 100% yummy. The first time I've tried most of these dishes and tasted them, I've gone, "Whoa! Did I really cook this myself? I wish I could show this off to my mom!" Many of these dishes, as cooked by me, have been tasted and appreciated by friends. So, you can be sure that the recipes are tried and tested to work.

Every recipe is accompanied by a picture taken in my kitchen, soon after the dish is prepared and ready.

Past recipes: Vaangibath, Lemon Rice, Aaloo-paalak, 7-Layer Dessert, Baingan Bharta.

The main target students for this school are young Indians like myself, who are neither total dummies in cooking nor accomplished experts and who like to try new recipes. I don't go into every basic step, nor describe every tiny detail, nor give the exact weight and proportions of the ingredients. I just describe the recipe so that it can be learnt in two minutes. I assume that the target students, who are not novices in cooking, can figure out the tiny details and proportions for themselves.

I have learnt most of these recipes from casual conversations with family and friends, from experimentation and intuition born out of eating my mother's South Indian dishes for almost a quarter century, from the Internet and even from packaging boxes of masalas and spices. Almost none of these recipes have actually been learnt in a kitchen, watching an Indian cook them in the authentic way. So, I make no claims for the recipes to be 100% authentic. I welcome feedback and suggestions from readers, but please don't crucify me when I am not being authentic or following tradition to the T.

I know several Indian languages, but I am not an expert in any of them. I know the names of cooking items and ingredients in some, all or none of these languages. I just use the names in any language that feels most convenient to me at the time. I will try to name the language I use in a recipe and I will try to provide the English or any other commonly known translation, but there will be inconsistencies. Please excuse.

If you try these recipes, please post a comment and let me know. I will be very thrilled if this Two-Minute Cooking School helps even just one poor (forced*) bachelor/ette, far from home, to get a taste for some yummy self-cooked Indian food!

Finally, here are some quick tips from personal experience, on learning to cook.

*Forced Bacherlor/ette: S/he is a married person who is currently forced to live the single life, due to circumstances. The circumstances are usually a work assignment in a different state or country.

Fantasy - My own radio talk show in Bangalore!

One of my favorite fantasies of life on going back to India involves hosting a morning talk show on FM radio in Bangalore. My primary fantasy, of course, is to be a filthy rich writer, wherever I am. But hosting a radio talk show comes right up there, along with owning a successful landmark middle-class-family-institution kinda restaurant.

Hosting a radio talk show in my own city Bangalore, interacting with all kinds of Bangaloreans, having a finger on the pulse of the city, being part of the city's cultural makeup, helping the city get up and get going every morning... how cool would that be!

I think I am well-suited to do that. I am born and brought up in Bangalore. I lived there for the first quarter century of my life. Like a true Bangalorean, I know five different languages, which are most spoken locally in Bangalore. I love interacting with people, facilitating discussions, and I can get them going quite nicely with my ability to see different sides of an issue and my penchant for playing the devil's advocate. I can just see how it would all play out.

I wake up at 4 AM every weekday morning, get ready and go to the radio studio. I am joined there by my team: a young vivacious talkative female co-hostess with plenty of attitude and pizzaz, a totally wacky male co-host who is good at doing all kinds of crazy pranks, a "hottie" female phone operator and a guest host of the month or quarter.

My female co-hostess is smart, quick with the words and more than an effective counterfoil to me. While my views might tend to be idealistic, controversial, playing the devil's advocate, wacky or downright weird, my female co-hostess will be the voice of common sense, reason and sanity. The male prankster is probably the guy who got into all kinds of trouble when you were in school or college. And that is precisely the talent which will come in handy for my show. We will get him to play all kinds of tricks and pranks and dares with our listeners. The phone operator looks and sounds hot. People will call in just to hear her voice, if not anything else. She will effectively field the countless calls we receive day after day after day.

The wild card of our team is the guest host. This is my original idea. We will choose the guest host from countless everyday Bangaloreans who would like to appear on our show. A guest host will be chosen for a period of one month or one quarter, during which they will be on the show with us every single weekday. For the next month or quarter, a new guest host will join us. I will have lunch once or twice a week with people who apply to be our guest host to select a person with the attitude and talent our show needs. The guest host is very important because they will provide us the perspective, the point of view of the everyday Bangalorean. They will bring their background, their culture and conditioning, their language and slang, their attitude, their personality to the show. For example, imagine having a college student on the show daily. S/he would provide the student perspective and the student slang that the rest of us in the team would have lost touch with. The guest host will put us in closer touch with our listeners. Nice idea, huh?

Apart from the core team above, we will of course, have our sound technicians, etc. who are the regular fixtures in the radio station. But what I've described above is the core talk show team.

So, every weekday morning, I will reach the studio at 6 AM and meet my entire team. We'll spend half an hour daily, taking a walk or working out or whatever to get warmed up and get into the groove of one another. We will come back to the studio at 6:30 AM, have our breakfast, coffee, tea and start the show at 7. And for the next three hours, from 7 AM to 10 AM, every weekday morning, we will have all of Bangalore listening to us, laughing with us, being entertained with us. We will play music. We will initiate debates and discussions on myriad interesting and often controversial subjects, including politics, social and family matters, entertainment, sports, religion. We will be frank, we will be bold and we will not compromise on the truth. We will have interviews of celebrities and common people. We will play pranks, practical jokes, experiments on the phone and in real life. We will generally have a ball! And doing all this, we will make a lot of money and hopefully help make things better for Bangalore, India and the world in our own way.

We will end the show at 10 AM, to get out and do whatever each of us does. I probably will write and/or run my own restaurant, do the legwork and preparations for the next day's show, participate in various events in Bangalore in my capacity as a local celebrity. :)

What a fantasy! Now I will go sleep.

Historical Fiction - Kaveri Stories

Posted on September 21, 2004 17:9 PM EST

I love reading historical fiction. The kind of books I have read are the ones that cover several decades/centuries narrating events of historical importance through the observing/participating eyes of fictional characters who span several generations. Often the main characters belong to a handful of families, and there is a continuity of these families through history.

Caribbean (about the Caribbean islands) and Texas (about the TX state, of course) are two books by James Michener which I really enjoyed, especially Caribbean. I have read several other such books by Michener and plan to read 'em all. I also thoroughly enjoyed Wilbur Smith's Ballantyne Series of books set in Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe.

I dream of reading such historical fiction set in India. They would be so rich and entertaining and enjoyable. More importantly, they would feel so close to heart and soul. Alas! My dream seems to be destined to remain a dream in the absence of any great literary movement in India. Literature in local languages seem to be all but dying away. Moreover, people in India seem to be so bloody insecure. There will invariably be controversies and problems over conflicts and differences that authentic historical research will bring up. This will discourage many authors from being brave and truthful.

I myself want to write a historical book, a series of short stories spread across history and located along the Kaveri river. The introduction to the book will contain the mythological story (or stories) of the birth of the river. My actual first story will be set in Kodagu, the birthplace of Kaveri, and at the oldest point in time. Perhaps it will be the story of a brave Kodava warrior. Then, there will be the popular story set in Talakad, of course. May be I will write the story of Sir M Vishveshwaraiah and the construction of Krishnaraja Sagar dam. There will be a tragic-suicidal story of lovers at Hoganekal falls. May be the heroine of that particular story will be named Kaveri. There has to be a story of violence between Kannnidagas and Tamizhs over Kaveri water. Perhaps a story of spiritual upliftment set in Srirangam. I will follow the river through geography and time, setting each subsequent story at places downriver, at different points of time, until the rivers joins the Bay of Bengal. I would love to write the stories in the local language and dialects. The readers should get a total immersion experience of the river Kaveri by the time they finish the book. With my training (or lack of it) in research and writing, it will be an arduous task.

May be I could make this a project for my (imaginary for now) literature class. Send promising students of my class to different places along the Kaveri, ask them to research the local history and language, come up with stories. At the end of the year, we shall collect the stories together and the class shall go on a long trip visiting places where the stories are set. In each of these places we shall have story narrations, plays, etc. We will make a documentary of our project. We will also make a TV series of the stories, in the authentic local dialects. Nice dream.