City of God - Movie Review

I just have to write about this authentic, gripping movie I saw recently, called City of God. It is one of those works which can be most appropriately described as a tour de force. It was an intense experience which left me drained and exhilarated by the time I finished watching it. The authentic realism of the movie was draining, the artistic cinematic quality of the movie was exhilarating.

The movie is apparently based on a true story, set in a true place, a slum in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro, a slum called "City of God". The tagline of the movie says, "Fight and you'll never survive... Run and you'll never escape". That pretty much sums up life in the slum. The story is about a couple of boys, who grow up to be barely men. One of them fights, and the other longs to run to a better life. Will the former survive? Will the latter escape? You'll have to watch the movie to find out.

The main focus of the movie is not about showing the struggles, the ugliness of the life in the slums. The main focus is to simply tell a great story. The struggles and the ugliness, the violence and the desperation are revealed in the context of the story. It is a gangster movie unlike any gangster movie you've seen before and will probably see again. The story is highly interesting and entertaining. It effortlessly captures our attention from beginning to end, keeping us wondering about what happens next.

When the movie starts, the protagonist of the story is one the verge of witnessing a street shootout between a drug-dealing gang and the police. Both sides have their guns drawn ready to fire (bottom half of the DVD cover picture shown above), and our guy finds himself planted right between them with nothing but his camera. Before we know what happens next, the story is narrated in a flashback, from the time when the main characters are boys, barely 7 years old, watching/participating in the life of petty crimes their brothers lead. The story follows them as they grow up (never seeming to cross 20 years of age), one of them becoming the most violent and feared drug dealer in the city, while the other struggles to keep himself out of trouble and follow his dream to be a photographer. The lives of the two boys are interwoven with each other, and with the lives of several others (most of them also boys) who come in, and go out or die, mostly die. The story is narrated with great skill, never losing or floundering the different narrative threads which are interwoven, always keeping them taut and just right. There are half a dozen or so separate narrative threads, each with it's own title. There are times when the same events are shown from different angles, as different threads come together and culminate at one point of time and space. The whole saga finally comes to a dramatic climax in a street shootout in broad daylight.

It is a movie about crime and violence among drug dealers. The story seems to happen in a different planet, a different reality because of how far removed the life depicted in the movie is from the kind of life most urban people in today's world know. I have seen science fiction movies which are more believable, which seem to be more in the realm of possibilities than some of the scenes in this movie. The violence is relentless and realistic from beginning to end. Some of the scenes are very disturbing and heart-rending. The movie shows kids who are not even into their teens doing drugs, dealing drugs, looting and shooting. The whole movie is indeed about kids, young and old. All the main characters never grow up to look (nor behave) like adults. That renders a sickly, tragic air to the whole drama. And despite the realism, it also makes the story hard to believe.

Yet, when I watched the special feature that came on the movie DVD, I realized that everything shown in the movie was all too real. The special feature is a 56-minute documentary made in the late 1990's, called "News from a Personal War", about the drug scene in the slums of Rio. The documentary starts by mentioning that a person dies in Rio every half an hour, and 90% of those deaths are due to violence! And then it goes on to show interviews with real people, involved in exactly the kind of life as shown in the movie. The documentary had interviews with kids who dealt drugs and killed people, families, policemen. It showed real police shootouts with the dealers and arrests. It went beyond what is impersonally reported in the news. It showed the personal face of the drug war, the personal perspective of every party involved. 56 minutes of crazy stuff!

City of God is a masterpiece of a movie, made mostly with amateur actors and the dialogs are supposedly in the authentic slum slang of Rio. The movie has received top reviews from all corners. This is not a movie to be missed.

City of God page on RottenTomatoes.com has links to all the reviews and movie info.

Nobody here is bitten by a (mad) dog to raze the city & rebuild it!

In my previous post, I had mentioned that there was a follow-up article by Ravi Belagere, who had written the original letter to Sudha Murthy.

Here is the original Kannada version of that follow-up article: Nobody here is bitten by a (mad) dog to raze the city & rebuild it!

Given blow is my unofficial translation of the article. Similar to the previous letter, the Kannada version of the article is in down-to-Earthy everyday colloquial language of Bangalore. Hence, I have tried to retain the same style and mood in my translation.

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Nobody here is bitten by a (mad) dog to raze the city & rebuild it!

Excerpt: 'If a Kannadiga raises his voice today, IT bosses will go away to Hyderabad. Then what will become of us?' Let the people who are shouting thus, know one fact: Even the Telugus, Marathis, Bengalis and people of Madhyapradesh know to raise their voices. Then will Azim Premji build the IT industry in the sky? The (apt) response to the arrogance of IT bosses is here...

by Ravi Belagere

The open letter I wrote to Sudha Murthy has heard responses ranging from, 'your head is not right', to trash, bull shit, nonsense, fu.. you man. Kannadiga IT engineers from different countries of the world have expressed their response to this publication.

You probably know. One of the foremost Kannada journalists S. K. Shaamasundar (we call him Shaami) has taken on the responsibility of thatskannada.com. Therein, every week, my column named 'Suryashikaari' is published. Many a time, Shaami selects one of my articles published in 'Haai Bangalore!' and publishes it on his portal. The letter I wrote to Sudha Murthy was so published a couple weeks ago. Kannadigas all over the world are able to read it. Hence, responses from corner corner of the world. IT workers from nearby Infosys, Wipro and other organizations have also sent their responses.

'Your argument is definitely right. We will also come to the protest against the IT bosses. Let us know immediately, the venue, time, date and other details of the protest.' The friends from IT industry have written thus too.

There are also other thousands of readers who have joined their voices to the voice of the magazine. I have browsed all the opinions. Honored all of them. 'Look here Belagere, what you have written is meaningless. It is ridiculous. It is trash. I don't have time to explain how it is meaning. Understand? For just know this. Your argument is meaningless' - this type of meaningful(!) mails have come. I laughed and kept quiet.

But the real and useful response has come from Sudha-akka's 'Infosys' side only! They have given 5 million dollars for America's Katrina disaster relief. Similarly, they have decided to give 5 million rupees to the Chief Minister's relief fund for the victims of North Karnataka's flood. The collection of that money has already started on Infosys campus. If an open letter brings this level of results, what is happier than that? Thanks to Sudhakka. But the problem is not related to Infosys alone. I wrote that letter keeping Sudha Murthy as the center because she is a daughter of a Kannada house. I have made that clear in the letter itself. This problem is not limited to just helping out the people of North Karnataka.

The IT bosses came to Bangalore because they felt it is suitable for establishing the IT industry. Our government started to lay out the red carpet to them because they started to come. The demands-pressures-threats-black mails of the IT bosses had started even from the time Deve Gowda and J. H. Patel were chief ministers. Looking at it that way, Patel himself got irritated and declared like a half-revolutionary, half-scoundrel, "If you want to stay, you may stay. If you want leave, you may leave. If you are not here, will we die starving? If we open ten cabaret joints, the wealthy who will come, will come!" At that time Chandrababu Naidu was (in power) in Andhra.

Administering the state like a typical IT company CEO, Naidu borrowed crores of rupees for the same infrastructure and made the roads of Hyderabad. The IT industry also flourished well there. However, by the time Chandrababu Naidu realized what a big chasm the IT industry created between the city and country lifestyles, the naxalites had risen up in the villages and woods of the Andra. The Raayalaseema movement demanded a separate state itself. The naxalites bombed the car of Naidu himself which came to Tirupati. At that time the IT industry was shaken up.

Such things have not happened in Karnataka until now. The people of Bangalore are peace lovers. Among the IT companies here, even one does not have a trade union. Bangalore is not attacked by floods. It is not hit by the heat. It is a guaranteed airconditioner which works without being switched on. Just a few months back, there was Chief Minister SM Krishna here who behaved as if he was born to the IT bosses. The things that the bosses signalled with their feet, he did them with his tongue. Starting from giving ten years of tax holiday, he snatched thousands of acres of land from farmers and gave them to the IT bosses and stood in front of them with folded hands as if to ask, 'Do you want anything more'. It is then that the real blackmail of the IT bosses started. As per their orders, SM Krishna built roads in Bangalore, using the money which would have been enough to build roads in all the towns and cities of Karnataka. He built flyovers which are not of a naya paisa use and at the same stage brought Indraloka itself for his IT bosses, vowing to turn Bangalore into a Singapore.

The IT bosses are asking for that very same thing. Dharam (Dharam Singh, current chief minister of Karnataka) is shaken and frightened.

World Bank's report is not necessary to bring the government to the street and slap it on the face. The roads here are not good, there are frequent power cuts, there are traffic jams and again, if it rains the low lying areas get flooded - you know this type of problems? These exist in any city like Bangalore, in any third-world country of the world. Mumbai, which was built with better planning than Bangalore, and which grew with grandeur, got caught in the rains recently and struggled to survive.

When an America like America could not bear the hit of Katrina and came down to the position of begging in the street, of what account are Bangalore's Bhoopasandhra, Shivanahalli, Ketamaaranahalli? As you know all the dailies from The Times of India to the Vijaya Karnataka are publishing reports, complaints, rants about the roads of Bangalore on a daily basis. Even after these magazines publish these reports for years, the bad roads, open pits and manholes, flooding areas will always exist in Bangalore. That does not mean they should not be written about.

On the one side, when we have the man who has no houses, no roads, no food to eat, who has lost everything in floodwaters, who is begging for at least an overhead shelter, there is no need to offer warm water for the feet and welcome the IT bosses who order, "Immediately build for us a road which will enable our cars to reach the airport in 5 minutes without any obstructions".

Life here is growing amidst broken streets, dirty gutters, traffic jams, a public life which is shattered by even a light rain, unnecessary traffic density. New things bloom. Our children study and become smart. America invites them and gives them jobs. Infrastructure doesn't mean just roads, toilets, airports, right?

But let us take this opportunity of the issues raised by the IT bosses and criticize our people also a little. What did you do with the road tax we paid? You started a projects of thousands of crores five years ago? How much did you eat out of them? Where are the people who said they would turn Bangalore into a Singapore, released crores of rupees for that? Let them give accounts. Let us gather all the MLAs and corporators of Bangalore in one place and ask them, how many crores worth of work was done in their jurisdictions, their areas? When were the bills approved? What is the state today of the roads built yesterday? What is the state today of the houses they stayed in yesterday? How many times did you become a minister? How many times MLA? From which ward how many times did you win as a corporator? How much work was done? What is your wealth then and now?

Let us begin this habit of demanding accounts at least due to the excuse of the issues raised by the IT bosses. Bangalore should not become Singapore for the sake of the bosses coming from Singapore: it should become so for the sake of the man of this land. If the IT boss wants to come sit here and do business, he should protect and respect the laws and regulations of this place, the social well-being, regional honor, etc. India is not a country like Thailand which is living based on prostitution, to present a throne to every boss who comes and destroy the fabric of our society.

Despite all this, a few rogues among the IT bosses talk thus: 'Not a bad idea. Send a few MPs, MLAs, corporators to Gurgaon, Hyderabad or Mumbai to learn what infrastructure means. Is this thing called Bangalore really a city? It should be totally razed down and rebuilt.'

These words were said by Jack Anderson of a company called NOVASOFT. Before this, an idiot had said that Bangalore should be brought under the Central Government's rule. There are people who have called Bangalore a dead city. But all the people who spoke like this know: All the foreign companies based in Gurgaon are getting work done with their factories full of police. If there is a traffic jam in Calcutta, it takes eight hours to clear. In Hyderabad, if the naxalites burst even a single bomb, Azim Premji's shop closes doors. Which IT boss will make an umbrella for Mumbai's rains? Non sense.

We shall provide facilities for the businessmen and industrialists who come to the city. That is a different matter: Nobody here is bitten by a (mad) dog to raze the city and rebuilt it for his sake. Let pimps like Yediyurappa (BJP leader from Karnataka), who shoot off their mouth shouting, ''If a Kannadiga raises his voice today, IT bosses will go away to Hyderabad. Then what will become of us?', realize one thing: even Telugus, Marathis, Bengalis, people of Madhyapradesh know to raise their voices.

After that, will Azim Premji build the IT industry in the sky?

-- Translation of the article ends --

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The letter to Sudha Murthy and the above article together provide interesting insights into the opinion of the average non-IT Indians towards the IT industries.

The angst of the man on the street is understandable. From their perspective, all they see of the IT industries is this: Organizations which employ mostly non-local people, who mostly speak English, who are paid very high. These people move in from outside, increase the population in the city, drive the demand and costs of everything very high. The local public doesn't really know or understand what these organizations do. All they know is that these companies do something for foreign countries, and contribute little or nothing to their own country or locality.

In the case of traditional hardware factories, the local population knew what the factories manufactured. They could see how they contributed to the locality and the country. Most of the people employed were from the local communities. They could see how the factories helped the local community develop. The factories seemed to care for their employees beyond just paying them. They appeared to care for the local communities beyond just using their resources. Not so in the case of IT companies.

The chasm, it appears, is more than just in payscales of the IT workers and the traditional industrial workers. The capitalist-style focus of the IT companies almost exclusively on the profits, with little or negligible care for the personal lives of their employees, and the state of the communities in which they are located, is not helping matters at all!

An Open Letter to Sudha Murthy (Translation)

The original Kannada version of this letter by Ravi Belagere, dated 5th Sept 2005, can be found here: Sudha Madam, do something to flood affected people...

Given below is my own unofficial translation. The Kannada version is in down-to-Earth everyday colloquial language of Bangalore. I have tried to retain the same mood in my translation also.

The author seems to be quite displeased with Bangalore's IT industry. He is merely using the incident of the floods in North Karnataka as an excuse to express his deeper angst against the industry. I admit that it is quite despicable if the IT industries of Bangalore did not rise up to help the affected people in North Karnataka, even after being aware of it. However, the general rant against the IT industry in Bangalore exhibits a dangerously narrow focus, a lack of deeper understanding of the issues involved and an absence of honest accountability. It also, of course, shows a politician in the making!

The irony is that the same IT power this author seems to so despise, has given him the tools (the computer) and the power (the Internet) to publish his belligerent and arrogant rant, giving him more exposure than he would have otherwise deserved or gotten.

The translation follows.

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To Sudha Murthy, the eldest daughter of Infosys

Excerpt: Sudha-akka (akka = older sister), you were the ones to bring home the bundle from the first labor of liberalization. Is it enough for the society to have engineers alone? We need farmers, teachers, mechanics, auto-drivers, barbers, cobblers, potters, laborers, everyone. If the farmer suffering from the attack of the floods gives up his plow today, will you eat dollars tomorrow? Will you eat computers? Please help out the farmer, and reduce your sins...

by Ravi Belagere

Greetings to Madam Sudha Murthy.

Recently, if Deputy Chief Minister M. P. Prakash had not given that kind of a statement, there would have been no need to write this kind of a letter to you. "I called all the IT company folks and spoke to them, Ravi. The entire North Karnataka is devastated by the attack of the floods. They have been beaten and washed away. There is no water to drink. Cows and calves are dead. Houses have collapsed. At this time, being richer than anybody else, you IT companies should lend a hand. Adopt a few villages. Build houses. During times like these, the affected people get 10-20 thousand rupees to help them rebuild their houses. We will give those funds also to you. Add your funds to those funds and build houses for the homeless. The government requested this of all the principal companies. As a Deputy Chief Minister, I personally requested. Having said, 'We will come back on this issue', they got up and left, and none of them have called us. They have not contributed a single rupee," said M. P. Prakash.

There was pain in his voice.

Sudha Madam, I believe you will understand why I have left out all the other companies and am writing this letter only to you. You are Kannadigas. An elder daughter of our land, our house. You read and write. You will understand the difficulties of the women in Belgaum who have lost their homes and belongings. One reason is that, you will spread the message of this letter in English to others in Infosys, and similar IT-BT organizations. The second reason is that, being a Bangalorean, a Kannadiga myself, I have the right to write such a letter to you. I am explaining in advance that the intention of this letter is not to hurt you.

You probably don't know. The people of North Karnataka lost their houses by the attack of the floods. But by the attack of our IT companies today, we are not able to find houses in Bangalore. Houses which were available for Rs 3000 rent, have Rs. 15000 - 18000 rent today! Leasing houses has been stopped for many seasons by now. Having brought the culture of service apartments, your IT industry has pushed the rent to Rs. 1500 per room per day. If there is any nursery school in Indiranagar with a donation of less than Rs. 30000, can you show it to me? Observe how high the price of beer in pubs is. Real Estate stands on a ladder, even higher than the sky. Just 7 years ago, I had bought a site for Rs. 400 per sq ft. It costs Rs. 3800 today. From where did you come and why did you come to our Bangalore?

After you have come, out of the 100 streets which were constructed in Bangalore, 75% are in your IT industrial areas. Just as every river flows towards the ocean, every fly-over of Bangalore stands facing your offices. When we think of building a good school in Bangalore which demands no donation, with good lady teachers - we don't find lady teachers at all. Reason: even if you find girls who talk just one-and-three-fourth sentence English, your call centers kidnap them.

The lady teacher who was supposed to teach thousands of students, works day and night, getting verbally abused by some big-headed client in America, any way he chooses (to abuse). The reason is just this. Our schools give a salary of 5-6 thousand. Call centers pay 8 thousand. The boys of our IT companies, the ones who returned from 1-2 months stay in America, talk like smart-asses- "You too pay higher. Teachers will stay with you." If we have to give high salaries, as usual, we have to break the heads of our students' parents. How costly have you made our sites, houses, schools, hotels? Where did you come from and why did you come madam?

Day before yesterday M. P. Prakash was saying: "our IT people were urging, 'Build a fast, direct road from the IT park in Whitefield to Hosur road, to be able to travel in a few minutes. Give 139 crores for that. Release it today itself'." What do you have to lose? If there is a mild rain, the areas of poor Bangaloreans like our Tyagarajanagara, Sampangiramanagara, Shastrinagara, drown away. Our Mayor Narayana Swami does not have a single paisa in his pocket to build rain water drainage for those (areas). But let water enter two houses in Bommanahalli? The sons of Saraswati (goddess of learning) for your IT industry, the Times of India, gives out a special report that day. The reason is that, Bommanahalli is the cradle of your IT industry. The rest of Bangalore is just a (begging) bowl for you.

Accept without hesitation. You have not done anything to Bangalore till now. Someone (probably your people) was recently making a speech that, "Bangalore has a place on the map of the world because of Narayanamurthy." A proud Kannadiga like me who was standing there responded, "Yo! Before Narayanamurthy did that, did Bangalore have a place on the map of the moon? Sit down, I say." But I am not saying that your husband Narayanamurthy has not done anything. But he has done everything good to America. He has done it very professionally. If we look to see if he has done anything for Bangalore, we find that he has diverted all the facilities which were supposed to be available for the entire Bangalore, to your IT parks, and once again done the great job of delighting your American clients.

But madam, before this, when Tata-Birla-Kirloskar and others built their factories in small small towns, they would also build a park, a road, a temple and such for those towns. You are ulta! You swallowed our park, road, lake, temple and made your IT park beautiful. Why the heck did you come?

You know talks such as, thousands of our boys have jobs because of you, they have visited and returned from foreign countries because of you? There is no talk more meaningless than that! You selected our boys from our college campuses, sent them to America and made them work as low rate coolies. Did you do that as a favor to us? Instead of that, if you had constructed an Infosys engineering college in every district, given free seats to smart boys from poor homes without charging a naya paisa, made them into engineers and sent them to America... madam, you husband-wife would have ridden in this year's Dasara ambaari (elephant procession), instead of the gods.

After using every facility of this state, and realizing that to be insufficient, your IT industry blackmailed the government declaring that, "We will go away to neighboring Hyderabad." You were the ones to bring home the bundle from the first labor of liberalization. Is it enough for the society to have engineers alone? We need farmers, teachers, mechanics, auto-drivers, barbers, cobblers, potters, laborers, everyone. If the farmer suffering from the attack of the floods gives up his plow today, will you eat dollars tomorrow? Will you eat computers?

Neither M. P. Prakash nor this state's most unfortunate citizen are asking you for alms. You are being warned that you have sucked the essence of this land, and so repay your debts. You are of one type (onthara). You are like the British, who are among us and of our own color, madam! If your insensitivity, your anti-town policies, blackmails continue like this, the days may come when we will have to start a movement to say, "You go to America". Before that I am giving you a signal. To Bangalore, Tamilians came, Malayalis came, Telugus came - oohoom! It did not feel so heavy when anybody came. When you came, you IT people? You became a burden to the whole Earth.

Understand your responsibility a little. Come to the help of your neighbors. When the tsunami waves struck somewhere, we are the big-hearted poor Kannadigas, who made truckloads of chapatis and took them from here. You are staying here. You are also eating chapatis: ours. At least build houses. Construct roads. Get a pair of bullocks to the poor farmer. Get clothes to school children. It is not just the government which is sitting, believing your, "We will come back to you on this issue." The devastated farmer sits looking at you with hopeful eyes.

Read this in English to your IT people and tell them, "This guy is some boor. He has written like this," Sudha-akka. I am like your younger brother. Don't be offended. You are our house daughter. Did you not do anything even after I said all this? That is okay. When you come this way, come to our house, take kunkuma (sindoor) and go: to America.

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PS: There is also a follow-up article by the same author (again in Kannada): Nobody here is bitten by a (mad) dog to destroy the town and rebuild it (for visiting businessmen, industrialists). I suppose you can guess that this article is even more belligerent towards the IT industry!

Update on Sept 23, 2005: My translation of the follow-up article is available now.

Guide to a guy's thoughts

1. When a man says that he loves you, he either just wants to get in your pants or he truly loves or both.

2. When there is no way for a man to get in your pants and he still says that he loves you, he means it.

3. Lots of times, men won't use the actual words "I love you", even if they really love the girl.

4. If a man takes less than 2 minutes to say bye to his girlfriend/wife, it does not mean he loves her any less. Men just take less time with their farewells than women.

5. If a man cannot have endless conversations with his girlfriend/wife on the phone, it does not mean he loves her any less. Most men are just not phone people. Especially when there are other practical stuff waiting (like starting the day's work, a game or movie on the TV, etc.).

6. If a man flirts with another woman, it does not mean he loves his girlfriend/wife any less than he used to. Women probably think so because in their case it's true - when they flirt with another man, it usually means they love their own man less than before.

More to be added whenever...

Email Forwarding Etiquette

Forwarding non-formal emails (jokes, interesting facts, x-rated pictures, gossip, etc.) is a fact of life for most email users who have time to spare, and for many email users who don't have time to spare, but still make time to read and forward such emails. Most of the times, it is a relatively harmless pastime. However, it is essential to follow a few simple rules of etiquette to keep this practice harmless and to protect our friends as well as ourselves.

1. Use the BCC field: This is very important. Unless there is some truly essential reason to list all the recipients in the To or CC fields, use only the BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) field to address recipients when forwarding non-formal emails. By doing this, you protect the privacy of your recipients, protect their email addresses from reaching spammers and other unwanted people. Imagine this scenario: You forward an x-rated mail to a bunch of friends, addressing them all in the To or CC field. They forward it to their friends, keeping the names and emails addresses of your friends and yourself intact. Their friends forward it to a bunch of other people. And pretty soon, everybody in the world might have seen x-rated emails with the names of your friends and yourself in them. Do you really want everyone and anyone to know that you are reading and forwarding x-rated material on email? Do you want your friends to be exposed too?

2. Clean up the clutter: Yes, we are all busy people, and it's only a forwarded email after all. So, why bother with any clean up? The first reason is simple courtesy towards the recipients. It is irritating to have to scroll through dozes of lines or pages of information about previous recipients and senders of the email before reaching the actual content. The more important reason to clean up clutter is privacy and protection of others and yourself. The most common forms of clutter that you should delete from an email before forwarding it to others are, information about the person who sent it to you, information about other people who might have read it before you, any signature or footer information which may be automatically added to the email before it reached you. Often, such footers include information about the company or organization of the sender(s). Please clean these up before forwarding the email.

3. Use personal mail boxes: Talking of companies and organizations, almost every company these days makes you sign Internet and email usage agreement papers when you join them. Part of the agreement usually states that you won't use these systems for personal or unofficial purposes. Part of the agreement almost certainly states that you won't use these systems to share or distribute objectionable content. Almost every circulating forwarded email is personal and/or unofficial and/or contains objectionable content. Everytime you receive or forward such emails from your official mailbox, you are breaking company policy, which can cost you dear (including being penalized and/or fired). So, make it a point to use personal email boxes (your own as well as those of your recipients), and not official company email accounts, to share these emails. Access these personal email accounts from home. Even if you access personal email accounts at work, do not open forwarded emails. The objectionable material such mails contain might include a virus which could put you in big trouble. Also remember, most companies these days have content filters on their email servers which scan every incoming and outgoing email for objectionable content. Depending on how the filter is configured, it could stop the email from being sent or received and it could alert someone (like your boss, for example) about such email traffic.

4. Size matters: Keep an eye on the size of the email you are forwarding. Do not forward emails with huge attachments. These days, most of us have high speed Internet connections and most of us have high storage capacity email accounts. That does not mean that we bombard somebody's email box with several megabytes of junk email forwards. Let's have some courtesy. Let's be aware that our careless actions might clog up somebody's email box, cause their machine to crash, slow down their server, use up their available bandwidth, bring them unwanted attention, etc. I don't know what size emails are "okay" to send. I still remember a time when an email with just a 1 MB attachment could fill up an email box and take a long time to open. These days people casually send emails having attachments several MBs large. A lot depends on the kind of Internet connection and email account the sender and recipient have. So, there is no magic number I can recommend. Also remember, even if you forward a moderate-sized email to a large group of people, somewhere on your mail server, this moderate-sized email is copied as many times as the number of your recipients. So, the emails you forwarded might end up occupying a large amount of space on the server (for however brief period of time), clogging the network, causing trouble. Just use your common sense. If in doubt, check with the intended recipient or do not send at all. It is just a forwarded email for god's sake.

5. Reply-All Hazard: Every email which is addressed to a bunch of people automatically has a reply-all hazard built-in. Use email systems long enough (especially in an organization) and you will certainly come across instances when people make fools of themselves by doing a reply-all, when they should have only been replying to the sender. You might do it/have done it yourself! Normally, a forwarded email will not need a reply-all. If your sender is smart and has followed rule 1 above (using BCC field), even doing a reply-all will address the response only to the sender. However, in the rare cases when you feel the need to reply-all, check the name of every intended recipient to ensure that you really want to send your response to them, anticipate the effect of your action and do it only if you must. Apart from the potential of making you appear like a fool, reply-all responses sometimes have a way of going out of hand, and you wouldn't want to suffer unforeseen consequences or trigger an email avalanche.

I guess that's it for now. Share this with others who might need the lesson. Have fun forwarding emails and enjoy responsibly.

Innocent Flirting or Mental Foreplay?

Disclaimer: I did not write what follows because I am prudish. I wrote it from personal flirting experience, watching other people flirt, and witnessing the consequences. All of what follows comes from, as they say, a practicing professional in the field of flirting!



Recently, I came across a guy who claimed to sincerely believe that flirting is not sexual. I have heard a lot of people use the phrase "innocent flirting", to mean flirting with no sexual intention/connotation.

What the heck is innocent flirting? The kind that you indulge in with someone of the same gender (assuming you are heterosexual) or the other gender (if you are homosexual)? The kind you would indulge in with a sibling or a close blood-relative? The kind you indulge in with a person whom you intensely dislike? Do you understand where I am going with this?

My point is that, we usually choose to flirt with the kind of people who are sexually oriented to us. By "people who are sexually oriented to us", I mean people who have 60% or more of the qualities which would allow us to have sex with them. We only flirt with the opposite gender if we are heterosexual, we flirt with the same gender if we are homosexual; we rarely flirt with people who are younger than or older than the age window within which we prefer to have sex; we almost never flirt with people whom we don't find attractive.

Gender, age and attraction are some of the most important criteria we use to choose the people with whom we have sex. If flirting was not about sex, why would there be very similar criteria for people whom we choose to just flirt with and people whom we choose to fantasize about/sleep with?

Even the very language of flirting is romantic and/or sexual. It may range all the way from being very obliquely romantic/sexual to blatantly romantic/sexual. But the romance and/or the sex is always there in the language. This is true of even the body language. The flirt and the "flirtee" display similar body language as a person who is being romantic/sexual with her/his lover. Even when the flirtee is not interested or dislikes the flirt, her/his reaction to the flirt is similar to her/his reaction to an unwanted suitor.

I don't think flirting is ever devoid of romance and sexuality. It may be true that the flirt and/or the flirtee have/has no conscious intention of taking things beyond verbal flirting. It may be that they don't really want to get physical. But I don't think the mind is truly devoid of the romance and the sexuality.

If someone thinks that they are flirting, and there are absolutely no sexual thoughts at any level in their mind, they are either deluding themselves or they are not flirting at all!

Flirting is the foreplay of the mind.

If it is true that sex is more in the mind, than in the body, then flirting is a much more significant and important act of foreplay than the actual physical foreplay.

Applying the Pareto Principle (or the 80-20 Rule): If one needs to score 100 points to have sexual intercourse with someone, 80 or more points are scored during mental foreplay (flirting), and only 20 or less points are scored during physical foreplay.

Flirting is almost purely about verbal communication. When future historians analyze the catalysts for the failure of the institution of marriage, an institution which seemed to control majority of the human society during a brief period of human history, they will conclude that the advancement in communication technologies (telephony, Internet, who knows what else will come in the future) was the main catalyst which broke the institution of marriage. Why? Advanced communication technologies enable mental foreplay, i.e. flirting, like never before! Naturally, this leads to more non-marital sex, than ever before!

Best Buy Geek Squad or Joke Squad?

I had a very bad customer service experience with Best Buy's Geek Squad (Best Buy's computer and electronic repairs department) for a simple data backup service. My experience in no way or form appears to be a one-off unlucky, fluke incident. It seems to be just the way Best Buy Geek Squad operates. I am writing this in the interest of other customers who may want to avoid a bad experience. Who knows, this may even be informative to some Best Buy manager who does not know what is happening in his stores and things might get a little better there. (If he already knows what is happening and is allowing it to happen, he is an idiot and should be fired!).

Following is the list of problems I encountered in my experience dealing with the Geek Squad:

1. Did not get accurate, consistent, honest price quote for the service I needed. At the Best Buy store on Camelback Road in Phoenix, AZ, the Geek Squad guys behaved like a bunch of hustlers.



2. Never got proper estimate of when my work would be completed. The people who answered my calls were vague and clueless. Often they were inconsistent and contradicted each other.



3. In both the Best Buy stores I went to, they did not stick to the original date they had given me. The first store told me they would complete in 3-4 days, but at the end of the 4th day, they had not even started working on my computer. I took it from there to the second store, where they initial told me 1-2 days. When the work was finally done, it was on the sixth day!



4. It was an olympian effort to get hold of the Geek Squad guys on the phone. I had to try several times, be transferred several times, wait for a really long time, and at the end of all that, there was the chance that I would not get anyone on the line and would hang up in disgust. This was a consistent experience in trying to call the Geek Squad.



5. The Geek Squad guys did not give the impression that they placed value on my hardware, my data, my time. They seemed to have a lackadaisical attitude.



6. The Geek Squad operation is not professional nor well-organized nor smoothly run. It is a joke!

I spoke to other smaller computer service guys in the city who seemed to have a much better operation and gave much better customer service. I spoke to one guy Rico (rico@palmtreepcs.com), who deserves special mention. I found him on the Phoenix Computer Services Craigslist page. Although I was a total stranger calling him out of the blue on a Saturday afternoon, he spent one hour on the phone talking to me about my problem, trying to diagnose it, trying to help me resolve it. He sent me emails with information (real information, not a sales pitch). He expressed interest in hearing back from me after my problem was resolved to know how it went. And most important, he was honest and forthright in advising me not to seek his service, although he offered it for lesser cost than the Best Buy price, because that would void my in-store warranty with Best Buy. He did that although it meant losing business. He voluntarily lost my business rather than have me lose my warranty, after having spent one hour on the phone with me, trying to help solve my problem. Thanks, Rico. I hope your business (Palmtreepcs.com) grows big and rich. With that kind of helpful attitude and honesty, I know you will do well in life, bro.

Update on Sept 2nd, 2005: Just found this link: Geek Squad Discussion on Gadgetopia.com. There are comments by other customers who have been screwed by Best Buy's Joke Squad, as well as comments from people who actually worked for the original Geek Squad before Best Buy bought them, and some comments from current Best Buy Joke Squad employees. I was right when I said that my bad experience is not an isolated one. Some of the stories there are worse than mine. Former Geek Squad agents have actually confessed to Best Buy forcing them to rip customers' money! End update.

If any of you are still interested in reading my full story, with all the boring details, continue reading below. For the rest, thanks for reading so far and beware of Best Buy's Joke Squad.


Background of the problem:

On the morning of Saturday, the 13th of August, Windows XP on my laptop crashed. I would need to reformat my hard drive and install Windows XP again, but before doing that I wanted to have the data on my hard disk backed up. Since my Windows system was not starting up, the only way to back up the data would be to open the laptop, remove the hard disk, connect it to some kind of a reader and back up the data. I had a three year warranty with Best Buy for my laptop, which was good for one more year. So, I could not have any non-Best Buy person open my laptop, as my warranty would lapse.

Best Buy Store on Camelback Rd, Phoenix, AZ:

The Geek Squad guys I met at this store were more incompetent hustlers than geeks. One of them quoted me $149 to backup 10GB of data, although the store sign said $89 for data backup services and mentioned nothing about the amount of data. He gave me some b.s. about different rates for different amounts of data. Another guy quoted me $200 to backup my data, run a diagnostics on my laptop and reinstall Windows XP (using my own copy of the software). Finally they agreed to charge me $89 to backup under 10GB of data plus labor charge of $29. Nobody had mentioned anything about a labor charge before. I distinctly got the feeling that they just did not want to backup my data for the $89 as the sign said. Their efforts at hustling was so awkward and so obvious. I had expected a smooth, professional, honest, no non-sense experience. Not some cheap car salesman kinda approach. Anyway, I gave them my laptop because I was tied to them by the warranty and I thought the experience would be the same at other Best Buy stores, which were located farther away from me. They said my backup would be done in 3-4 days.

On the third day, I called them. They told me that they would do it soon and they would call me back. I called them on the afternoon of the fourth day. The guy who picked up the phone told me he would call me back in half an hour. I waited for two hours. He never called back. While I waited for his call, I called a couple of other Best Buy stores in the city and spoke to their Geek Squad guys. I was shocked to hear both of them tell me that they would back up the entire contents of my hard disk for $89, and there would be no labor charge.

My temper went up the roof. I did not trust myself to speak politely. So, I typed out a letter explaining the whole situation and asking them to give back my laptop because I did not want to do business with a bunch of hustlers. I took the letter to the Best Buy customer service manager at the Camelback Road store. This guy (named Ty something) read my letter, went in and brought back my laptop to me. When it comes to services of the Geek Squad, Best Buy's price match offer goes out the window. They won't even match the price of other Best Buy stores. This customer service manager did not so much as offer an apology for my experience, let alone offer to match the price of the other Best Buy stores. He just gave me a lame excuse of their rates being changed recently, and the store signs which quoted $89 for data backup being outdated. Did the idiot really think I would buy that excuse?

I realized the futility of having any further talks with him. I took my machine and went to a different Best Buy store.

This was day four of my system breakdown.

Best Buy Store on Thunderbird Rd, Phoenix, AZ:

The first experience in this store was quite different. The Geek Squad lady I spoke to was polite and straight forward. She charged me $89 to backup my entire hard disk and told me that it would be ready in a day or two. I felt relieved and happy. But my relief was too premature.

I called the Geek Squad at this store the next afternoon. The guy I talked to told me that my laptop was next in queue to be serviced and he would do my data backup as soon as he was finished with the system he was working on. He thought he would start on it within the next couple of hours and it would probably be done either that same evening or the next day, and that he would call me when it was ready. I did not get any calls that evening.

The next afternoon, I called them back. This time I spoke to a different guy who told me that they were very busy and there were some 5 or 6 systems which need to serviced before mine would be. He could not explain to me how my system slipped in the queue from the second position to the seventh position!

For the next three days, I called them daily. Everytime I called them, all they would tell me was that my system was out on their desk and it should be done either by that evening or the next morning. They gave me this spiel for three days! They could never tell me for sure when exactly it would be worked on.

By the way, it is not easy to get these VIP guys on the phone. Everytime I wanted to talk to them, I had to call the store about three times, be transferred to the Geek Squad about three times during each call (despite choosing the right numbers in the automated phone system to be directly transferred), and wait upto 20 minutes during each call before I could speak to someone. Many a time, the phone would just ring and ring and nobody would pick it up. I would disconnect with impatience and disgust. This was my experience trying to call the Geek Squad in both stores - on Camelback Rd and on Thunderbird Rd.

Finally, on the NINTH day since my laptop crashed, I called the store and was told that they had managed to copy all the data from my hard disk to another hard disk, and it was now only a matter of writing that data to the CDs. That would be done in a couple of hours they told me. I waited for almost 6 hours. Then I got really impatient and drove personally to the store. I found that they had just started to write my data to the CDs. They could only return my laptop that day, but the backup CDs would be ready only the next day, the TENTH day since my laptop crashed!

The last day, when I went to the store to pick up my backup disks, I found that they were all put in a plastic bag and left lying in a shelf in their work area. The bag or the disks were not labelled with my name or any other identifying info. The guy who was at the counter had to call another guy to ask him where my disks were and to confirm that they were indeed my backup disks. The attitude and the value they seemed to place on customer data was totally unacceptable.

This whole experience with Best Buy's Geek Squad has been unsavory and dissatisfactory. This is one of the worst customer service experiences I have had in the US. Best Buy should rechristen the Geek Squad as the Joke Squad.

Layer Cake - Movie Review

Yesterday, I watched a nice little gangster movie called Layer Cake. It is a movie really worth watching. The movie plays out in a British setting and is a welcome change to the American gangster movies we are used to. The language of the British underworld is just one of many things which makes the movie interesting. There are plenty of twists and turns in the movie to keep us rivetted to the screen, wondering what would happen next. I don't even remember the last time I watched a crime movie in which I could not guess what would happen next.

The movie is based on a book by JJ Connolly called Layer Cake. The story is about an unnamed cocaine dealer (played by Daniel Craig), who is more of a savvy business man, than an ordinary criminal. The movie starts off with a spiel by the guy about how he ran a quiet, efficient business, how he made a neat bundle and how he plans to leave the life of crime to retire into a safe, quiet life. However, before he can retire, he has to complete two final tasks for his boss, Jimmy Price: a) find the missing drug-addict daughter of a close friend of the boss; b) facilitate the sale of a huge shipment of ecstasy from an unsafe, maverick criminal called The Duke.

Sounds simple enough, but there starts the labyrinthine twists and turns of the plot which gets more complex and tighter each passing minute. It is filled with secret dealings and double-crossings and unexpected happenings. The hero navigates different layers of the British crime world from the bottom-most to the very top (which gives the movie it's name), including petty crooks, terrorists, assassins and rich powerful crime bosses. With each passing sequence, he is pushed into ever deeper and dangerous pits of the underworld and the situation seems to get more and more hopeless, until the plot unravels into a beautiful finish. The movie is full of characters with names such as Clarkie, Duke, Slasher, Gazzar, Morty, Slavo, Kinky and so on.

This stylishly shot and tightly narrated movie is an excellent directorial debut by Producer Matthew Vaughn. I am surprised that this movie is not more popular. I am glad I rented this dvd after watching a trailer on another dvd.

The Corporate Take-over of my Meals

I live in an American city, I mean a city in the United States of America. Listed below are the meals I had on Sunday, 21st August 2005:

Breakfast: Cereal - my favorite Honey Bunches of oats with almonds - with Silk Soy vanilla soymilk; guava juice from a carton pack.

Lunch: Morningstar Garden Veggie burger on Oroweat cracked wheat bun with a slice of Kraft Deluxe cheese, ketchup, mustard, dill relish all from Heinz, and packaged salsa bought from Trader Joe's. My burger also had a couple of slices of a "fresh" tomato from my refrigerator. I washed down my burger with a cheap local brand ginger ale. (I don't remember tasting ginger ale before, but I really liked it ice cold this hot afternoon).

Dinner: Maggi noodles prepared in the typical "2 minutes" style. Boil water, add noodles and the accompanying packet of flavoring powder.

Why am I listing my meals? After all, I am not some celebrity, in whose diet people would be interested. What is the common factor we notice among all the stuff I ate yesterday? Yes, except for the two slices of tomato on my burger, everything else that I ate was processed and packaged food! I am amazed that 99% percent of my one full day's diet is food, which came out of a box and was several days (months actually) old! This must be one of the defining factors in the Americanization of my lifestyle. Yet, I did not even notice when exactly this happened to me. I have had countless meals like these since I came to the US.

I am amazed at how much of processed and packaged food people eat in the US. When I was growing up in India, almost 100% of my diet was fresh, home-made stuff. The milk we drank in the morning was milked from a cow that very morning and the milk we drank in the evening was milked that very afternoon. We bought our vegetables fresh daily. Except for vegetables like onions, potatoes, ginger, garlic, etc. which could be kept for a few days, all other vegetables were bought fresh every day and consumed the same day. We did not have a refrigerator! There was no question of eating left-over food. Either we made sure nothing was left over or we gave the food away to beggars who came looking for left-overs, late in the night or early next morning. When we were kids, often my mother not even let us eat at night, food prepared in the afternoon. All our spice mixes were home-made from scratch. We did not buy packaged spices (except for asafoetida, perhaps). Everything we ate was either fresh or naturally dried or processed at home. The only ingredients of our daily diet which were processed and bought in packets were salt and sugar.

Talking of sugar, what's with the American breakfast? Except for the cholesterol-rich and non-vegetarian omelettes, is there any other American breakfast dish that is not loaded with sugar? In my South Indian home, a sweet breakfast is a rare thing. We had it once in about 1 or 2 or even 3 months. Although there are countless varieties of Indian sweet dishes and delicacies, they are not usually consumed on a daily basis. The only daily sugar in-take for Indians would be in coffee, tea, milk or some other hot beverage. Like me, if you do not sip any hot beverage on a daily basis, your consumption of processed sugar would be very rare and low indeed. In America, 99% of the breakfast is loaded with sugar. At meals, the average person does not drink water. At lunch and/or dinner, the culture - no doubt with ample encouragement and conditioning from soft drink corporations - is to have another load of sugar in soda pop. If not soda pop, it is some alcoholic beverage at dinner. What the heck! What is wrong with simple, healthy water?

In the India I grew up in, fully 90% to 100% of any meal was freshly prepared at home, with ingredients made from scratch. In an average American home, anywhere from 80% to 100% of the meal is processed and packaged food. Even Indians in the US, who stick to Indian diet and cook their own food at home, can't avoid an increase in the percentage of processed food they consume compared to their life in India. This is not a healthy state of affairs.

Unfortunately, this trend is increasing in India also. More and more food is processed and packaged. This will only increase as more and more multi-national food companies setup shop in India, as the local street-corner grocery stores and travelling vegetable carts disappear giving way to grocery super markets, as the Indian public ape America's consumerist culture, as the woman of the house no longer sees feeding the family healthy food as one of her primary tasks. It is a sad change. A change which will reduce the quality of the Indian diet and increase the number of diet-related illnesses in India, the way it is already happening in America.

Why really did Vivek Paul quit Wipro?

Disclaimer: Everything that follows is merely speculation on my part, in my individual capacity. Everything I have written below is based on the information freely available in the public media, like the newspapers and the magazines. I have no access to any non-public or confidential data/documents which support or refute what is written below. Specifically, I don't have access to any information or documents internal to Wipro, nor have I been privy to any discussions, which support or refute what is written below.

Background info:

Rediff Article: Why Vivek Paul quit Wipro: The inside story
Rediff Interview: Vivek Paul: It was the right time to go
Times of India Interview: Why Vivek Paul really quit Wipro


I was very surprised when I heard about Vivek Paul's resignation as the Vice Chairman of Wipro. The reason is that Wipro still has a long way to go in dominating the world software services market, and there are still a lot of great things he could have achieved through Wipro. Why really did Vivek Paul quit Wipro? The question has never been satisfactorily answered.

Vivek Paul's 4-by-4 vision - to make Wipro a 4 billion dollar company by 2004 - was not realized yet. Regarding this vision, Vivek Paul admits in the Rediff interview, "Wipro didn't get anywhere close." Granted that 2004 passed by before the 4-by-4 vision could be achieved. But, I don't think Vivek Paul is the kind of person who would abandon his vision just because the deadline he set for himself has passed. He seems to be the kind of person who would be all the more determined to achieve the vision or something bigger.

In the same interview he says that he asked himself, "Do I declare a new vision and sign up for it?", then decided not to do so, and quit! That is not very convincing!

"The inside story" from Rediff tells us that Vivek Paul quit Wipro because he had become "restless" within Wipro, and wanted to do "something else". It is hard for me to believe that Vivek Paul felt "restless" because he did not have anything more or anything exciting to do within Wipro. There are still a lot of miles for Wipro to travel on its way to the top, and Vivek Paul simply does not come across as a restless young buck who gets bored and changes tracks just for the sake of change. No, if he felt "restless" and frustrated, there must be some other reason.

In the TOI interview, Vivek Paul was asked, "Was there any kind of pressure that forced you to quit?"

His answer: "Well, there was some push and pull. If you have $15 billion ( market capitalisation of Wipro) in family business, how can you not tend to it? I would do the same if I were in his position."

I am willing to bet that the above quote alludes to the main reason for Vivek Paul's departure from Wipro: he did not foresee significant and lasting rewards and returns coming his way for all the work he was doing for Wipro. Granted that Vivek Paul earned one of the highest salaries among Indian professional managers, but that is nothing compared to the giant organization he was building with sweat and soul. When you build something like that, putting the best years of your life and your best efforts into it, you expect more than just periodic compensation and a relatively tiny share allocation.

It is true that Azim Premji has often said that his sons won't have easy unearned right-of-way into Wipro management and start tending the company. However, he has never said that his sons won't get the over 83% of the company that he holds (Source: Wipro Shareholding Pattern for quarter ending Mar 31st 2005, see the percentage sub total of "PROMOTERS HOLDING").

I am speculating that Premji fully intends to retain this over 83% of the company within the family. This must have made Vivek Paul realize that despite putting in so much effort to build up the Wipro business, in the long run, he would be nothing more than just one of thousands of Wipro employees who came, worked hard and left. He must have realized that even after producing great results for the company, he would not have anything really significant (comparatively speaking) and lasting for himself.

I feel that this is really why Vivek Paul quit Wipro. This is also the reason why many senior managers and super-achievers quit Wipro often at the height of their careers in the company, and venture out to work for others or start their own businesses. After spending a certain number of years with Wipro, senior people seem to leave with a certain disappointment, and a belief that they could achieve more for themselves elsewhere. Is that a case of the person growing bigger than his role and seeking higher goals, or is that a case of the person hitting a glass ceiling within the company beyond which he does not see rewards commensurate with his contributions?

Wipro seems to believe that bright young people will come in and put their best talents, energies and efforts to help the company achieve success, and that they will do all this just for the thrills and satisfaction of a challenging job well done. That is true to a certain extent. Every year, Wipro manages to find people - at junior and senior levels - who do precisely that.

However, Wipro should not get complacent and think it is invincible. It should carefully consider the cost of consistently losing senior people, and the effect that has on the company's growth. Wipro is a large, robustly administered company and a senior person leaving now and then may not affect the status quo adversely. However, there is a cost to growth: not only because the senior people take away with them valuable knowledge, experience and drive, but also because these people almost always add fuel to Wipro's competition.

Wipro should realize that it is not an organization like the country's defense forces. Bright, capable young people join the defense forces. They put in good work. They rise to the highest levels. They work for a monthly salary during their entire careers, and retire with a pension. That cannot happen in the business world. In capitalist organizations, people at the highest levels want to own a part of the business and share in the profits. Not just draw a salary and retire, no matter how high the salary is. A company which does not fulfill this aspiration, cannot keep the loyalties of its senior-most people.

Demand the best possible salary from your employer

A recent question/comment on an Indian message board was as follows:

Friends,
A recent trend in the IT jobs show that people takes it like a business or even we can call it as a blade business(A guy who charges 4% interest per month on the finance, he lend to his customer). Is this professionalism?

Recently I have seen a resume with around 5 yrs of exp and trying for the 8th job!!! Also seen another person in last 1 yr worked with 3 major Indian IT companies!!! How can we call this as Professionalism? What they gain from this other than money? Or do you think money is the only thing we leave for? What about our learning’s, career, growth, value, contribution etc etc? Do we won’t give any priority to these things? Or only money is the first & last priority in our list??

I had just brought this for debate which I believe it’s unethical & un-professionalism. You might have a different opinion… Also this is not against anybody.



There are several questions above. However, my response below is limited only to the part about demanding the best possible salary from the employer. Please keep in mind that this whole topic is in the context of Indian tech companies. My response follows:


I don't find fault with the guys who negotiate the best possible salary for themselves, for the following reasons:

1. Almost nobody in the industry is a passionate artist who works simply for passion and soul satisfaction. Organizations and individuals are always looking to make the maximum profit. It is only common sense and good survival strategy to be as high on the profit/pay scale as possible for both organizations and individuals.

2. The pay scales within a company always grow at a rate much lower than the rate at which pay scales in the market grow. Meaning, the longer you stay in the same company, the lesser you will earn compared to the pay being offered in the job market for the same job and profile. This difference between personal pay and market rate only increases as the years roll. It is almost like a depreciation of the person's worth in the eyes of the company. Believe me, it does not feel good when you have put in years of solid, sincere, dependable service to the company and you see that the company values a newcomer in the market more than it values you.

3. The disparity between what a person is billed for and what he is paid is quite high. The employee is being paid much less than what the company earns from his work. This is the most important reason why Indian tech companies are so spectacularly profitable. For example, I am work at the client site in the US and the ratio of my pay to the ratio of my billing rate is roughly about 40:60. That is a huge difference, when you consider that a typical contracting company in the US pays between 70 - 85 percent of the billing rate to the employee. If you are working offshore in India, this difference between your pay and billing rate would be even higher. So, someone (read, the company) is making a lot of money out of your work. The least you can expect in return is competitive pay, good facilities, good treatment, respect and recognition of your value. How much of all these are you getting? We are not ignorant medieval farmers who can be kept in the dark while middlemen and rich merchants make a huge profit. Yet, that is how the situation is and that is how people are treated by many Indian tech companies. So, if a guy negotiates a great salary from the company, I say, "good for him"!

4. If you have spent a few years working in any company, especially a big company (where you are a small fish in a big ocean), you know what a hassle it is to get satisfactory increments and promotions. Although the policies and rules are supposed to be well defined and everything is supposed to be transparent, that's not the ground reality. There is an element of arbitrariness, luck, bureaucracy, politics, etc. which come into play, making the whole experience of increments and promotions less than satisfactory. So, it is always better to negotiate a great salary and great role before you join the company. Suppose two people A and B join the company at the same time. A joins for X pay and B joins for (X + d) pay. Suppose over the next few years, both of them get average pay increases. Notice that A will continue to get lesser pay than B throughout the career. The initial pay difference 'd' continues to affect a person throughout their career in the company. Heck, it will even affect them when they are negotiating pay with a new company they want to join, if the pay at the new company is based partially on what he is earning now.

-- End --

Indian men and Inter-racial dating

A post titled, Indian guys, white girls, and more..., prompted me to write this blog. In that blog, an Indian guy who has "no trouble dating women (of any ethnicity)" gives us a 10-point advice on making ourselves more date-worthy. He also seems to imply that the lack of these 10 qualities is the reason why we don't see a lot of white women dating Indian men. It's too much of a bait for me to resist. And for the record, I have dated a few white women myself.

The points listed in the above blog are generic good pointers for life, not only for just dating. And they will certainly help in the dating arena.

However, it is wrong to think that the lack of these qualities is the reason why we see less white women with Indian men. And having these qualities won't guarantee you a white woman either. It doesn't take a genius to realize that there are enough non-Indian losers in the US who don't have most of these qualities and still score white chicks.

In my opinion, the main reasons why there are not enough white/black/hispanic chicks hooking up with Indian guys are three:

1. Racial differences: This is the primary reason. Most women have very specific race (and also height, weight, looks) preferences when it comes to dating. This is especially true of the Western women. If you belong to the race which the woman prefers, you have no problem. However, if you belong to a different race, it is not easy to cross this race preference barrier, unless you are an exceptionally attractive specimen of your race (and being rich helps too). The average man - Indian/white/black - is not such an exceptional specimen.



2. Cultural differences: Even if a person is not very specific about ethnicity or race, there are still cultural differences to surmount. The cultural differences between an average American and an Indian raised in India are just enormous. Put the average white girl and the average desi guy in a room, and watch them talk. Chances are, everything about them is different - their language, their ideas and beliefs, their interests, their preferences, everything. They might have an interesting conversation because of these very differences, they might even be able to have a short fling, but anything steady or longer term is very very difficult. It takes enormous maturity, flexibility and intelligence on the part of both people to be able to carry off anything steady or long term. The average person - white chick or Indian guy - does not possess this enormous maturity, flexibility and cultural intelligence. And nobody blame the Indian guy if he is not in tune with the latest Western fashion trends or music! Why should he be? If he likes lounging around in a lungi, watching Kal Ho Na Ho, that is his culture and his preference.



3. Personality: I am talking of the personality of the average Indian guy in the US. What is his profile? Middle class Indian background, middle class values. Probably above average in studies. Probably below average when it comes to chatting up the girls, even in India. He is pretty stable and responsible, but he is not a playa by any definition of that word. How can he come to the US and play the field successfully? Especially when racial and cultural differences are aligned against him? It is too much to expect. On the other hand, I know a few players from my college days in Bangalore who could come to the US, not follow most of the 10-point advice listed in this blog and score more white chicks than even the average white boy. Scoring chicks is an in-born talent for them. It is in their personality. Fortunately or unfortunately, most such Indian players don't score good grades and end up in jobs which don't bring them to the US. I am not suggesting that you need to be a player to date foreign women. But you do need some skills to surmount the racial and cultural obstacles in the romantic arena. I don't think such skills are available in plenty among the typical Indian tech workers in the US.

Bottomline, most Indian guys in the US are just not made for inter-racial dating. I am sorry guys. I know it sucks to hear this. I know it sucks double when you go to a store or restaurant or tourist spot and see white guys or even retarded-looking hispanic guys accompanied by hot-ass chicks acting like kittens begging for their petting. I know it sucks triple when the most female social contact you have is either small talk with your colleague's wife or that average/ugly single Indian girl at work who usually has half a dozen Indian guys surrounding her and who shows nakhras like she is the Queen of Sheba.

That is the price Indian guys have to pay. It is the price for earning big bucks in a foreign land. It is the price for being born in a culture where dating is still not the primary method of picking your partner, a culture in which girls act as if talking to or going out with a guy who does not look like prime husband material at first glance, is the equivalent of losing their virginity to a stranger on the street. So, just grin and bear, jerk off to porn/fantasies of white women, get married to a nice sensible Indian girl, have smart kids and continue the glorious traditions of our glorious culture.

For the other Indian guys who are aware of all this and still want to score white women, I wish the very best of luck. I am a great advocate of inter-racial dating and mutual sharing of stories, dreams, food and various bodily fluids as the best way of experiencing other cultures and expanding one's horizons. And please guys, try your best to make it an experience she will remember with pleasure. We have got a reputation to build and maintain!

Here's a related post specifically for non-Indian women who are interested in Indian men: Dating Indian Men I

What is the scam with the phone cards?

I sometimes use this phone card to call India, from the US. Can you believe the number of digits I have to dial for my call to go through? First the 11 digit 1-800 number of the calling card, then the 11 digit pin number, followed by the 15 digit phone number (including 011-countrycode-areacode-phone no.). That is a total of 37 digits dialled to make one phone call! It is so very easy to dial a wrong digit when punching so many numbers. When I am in a hurry (need to make an urgent call before going some place) or agitated (argument with someone, need to call them back), the frustrations of dialling 37 randomly sequenced numbers and getting it wrong a few times, probably shaves seconds or minutes off my lifespan!

Add to that the unreliable quality of the connection in the form of dropped calls, noise on the line, the possibility of being charged even when the connection with the calling party is not properly established. And then throw in other things like service charges, connection charges, weekly/monthly charges, half-, 1-, 2-, 3-minute rounding. That completes the misery of the calling India experience. A droning lifeless voice announcing, "You have one more minute of talk time left", before the connection is cut-off abruptly, no matter how important, critical or emotional the conversation is, makes the experience even worse.

It is possible to eliminate each one of the above obstacles and miseries. I do use services which don't have some of these problems. But such services come with a cost. Eliminating one to almost all of the above woes can cost me anywhere from 2 cents to 20 cents to 70 cents or even over a dollar more per minute of talk time, as compared to the phone card I've described above. Apart from the extra per minute charges, there could also be a flat monthly fee of 3 to 6 dollars.

Now, what is this scam with the phone cards? Why can't my home phone or my cell phone company offer me unlimited, unrestricted, good quality International calling at comparable rates? It is not as if there is no bandwidth. The bandwidth is there. And it is being sold by phone card companies in pathetic tiny, inconvenient to use packages. If the bandwidth is available, why can't I have it without the need to dial long phone card numbers and pin numbers? Why should I get it only in small chunks, which abruptly run out and end my call? Why can't my home phone or cell phone company buy all these chunks of bandwidth from the phone card companies or whoever it is that owns them, and offer them to customers like me in one convenient uninterrupted stream, at the same rate? I am sure there would be lots of willing buyers, who will help such a telephone company realize the economies of scale.

The situation is analogous to this: There is a great, well-built highway, available for our use. The only choices of transport we now have are small individual cars offering rides of different comfort levels depending on how much we are willing to pay. What I am asking for is something like a big bus or train, a mass-transport service which can offer reasonable comforts, at reasonable rates.

But we don't have a cheap mass-transport service available. In America, the cost of long distance bus travel is almost close to the cost of some air-ticket deals. Similarly, Indians calling India from the US have to pay extra bucks for good quality connections or suffer through the experiences of poor calling cards. Even calling Australia from the US is so much easier and cheaper. Although Australia is farther and certainly has less number of callers from the US!

When, oh when will the situation improve? I know that there will come a day when all these problems will be a thing of the distant past. We will be making free phone calls from anywhere to anywhere in the world, with any device - phone, cell phone, computer, whatever. I can see such a world of cheap, seamless communication. It is not too far in the future.

The Internet is an incredible portal which reduces communication time and distance to almost nothing. Such an Internet is within finger-tips access of me most of the time. A major part of my current life is spent in close proximity to high-speed Internet connections - both with cables and wireless, both at home and at work. Through this medium, I can exchange data, voice, video and typed communication with people around the world, in almost real time. I pay a sizeable fee for the pleasure of having a constantly available, high-speed Internet connection. I don't even utilize the full capacity of the connection available to me. I do not want to pay anything more for any of my other communication needs - not for my cell phone (unless I am "roaming" away from a Net zone), and certainly not for lousy calling cards.

Being in close proximity, most of the time, to such a medium as the Internet and being able to imagine a world of cheap or free seamless communication from anywhere to anywhere, my frustrations with the current long-distance calling situation is multiplied many times. When I use these calling cards to call India, I feel like a Formula One driver from the future, who normally owns and drives F1 cars for free, being zapped into the past and asked to pay for the use of a pathetic mule-driven cart.

Accident Statistics for Workers of Electronic City, Bangalore

I know that one of India's foremost software companies - let's call it W - has a big campus at Electronic City (ECity), on Hosur Road, in southern Bangalore. Thousands of people work there. I also know that ever since this W company started to move its operations to ECity, it has lost the life of at least one employee - perhaps more - every year in accidents on Hosur Road alone. That is not a small number. That is a grave (no pun intended) statistic for a company of any size!

This makes me wonder about the following questions:

1. Exactly how many employee lives has W lost in accidents, on the way to and from office, on Hosur Road?

2. How many employees of W have only been hurt, but not lost their lives in accidents on Hosur Road? (I almost never hear about the no-fatal accidents).

3. Repeat the above two questions for W's employees encountering accidents to and from work, in other parts of the city, i.e., accidents which don't happen on Hosur Road.

4. Repeat all of the above questions for the hundreds, may be even thousands, of other companies which have setup shop in ECity and whose employees travel to and from work at all hours of the day and night.

I am sure the statistics would be staggering. It would be very revealing and explosive if some newspaper gathered these statistics, interpreted them in a proper way and published the results. I don't have the time or resources to do so myself.

If Bangalore is the technology capital of India, ECity is undoubtedly the technology headquarters of Bangalore. There are hundreds of companies here and lakhs of people who work here. The rush hour traffic to and from this place is a nightmare. For most people, the commute to their offices in ECity is a minimum of one hour journey in crowded, indisciplined, reckless and dangerous Bangalore traffic. For people riding two-wheelers, it is a literal deathzone. Even people in cars are not safe and could be easily crushed by the countless trucks and buses plying on this road. People in buses are not totally safe either. In fact, the last employee of W company to die on Hosur Road was travelling in a bus. Such is the notoriety of Hosur Road.

Incidentally, in the 90's, the condition of this road was much neglected by the government. Repeated complaints by the tech companies in this area produced no results. Finally, frustrated employees of Infosys and other tech companies, took up road repair tools and got down on the road themselves, "to repair it". It was a symbolic protest, but it finally made the government to sit up and take notice. However, as usual in India, each new development effort undertaken on this road is too late. By the time any development activity is completed, the volume of traffic would have increased manifold and neutralized the benefits of such development.

The result is that today's technology workers who set out every morning towards Electronic City in Bangalore, face an equivalent or greater danger to their lives as compared to a caveman in prehistoric times who sets out with primitive weapons into a dangerous and hostile jungle to get food.

Hot Heini

This is my favorite drink this season. It is a refreshing, tasty and above all worthy drink. Great for the summer.

The recipe was provided by some person with the username 'Heineken' on another message board. I was very impressed when I tried it. But the guy gave no name for it! I searched online to see if this drink already had a name, but I could not find one. So, I named it myself: Hot Heini.

Recipe:
A shot of vodka in a tall glass.

Squeeze the juice from a slice of lemon into it.

Pour in chilled Heineken.

Drop in a fresh slice of lemon.

Enjoy.

PS: In some parts of India, "hot" is used in lieu of "hard", as in the phrase, "hard liquor". Since we use the hot liquor vodka, I call this Hot Heini! :-D

Ladies (in) Toilet

Have any of you guys visited the ladies' toilet? I have!

I read recently that boys over 5 years old are not allowed in ladies' toilets. The last time I visited one, I was 25 years old or so, and it was at my office. My client-manager from my last work place stood outside, being my look-out. When I came out, I found that she had abandoned her post to send some email! I am not sure if the cleaning woman saw me coming out of the ladies toilet. If she did, she never reported me. Yes, fact can be stranger than fiction.

When we went to the Grand Canyon last summer, there was a very long queue at one of the ladies' restrooms on the South Rim. In contrast, guys were breezing in and out of the men's restrooms. A couple of women could not wait. They just coolly walked into the men's toilet, muttering apologies and used the facilities. The expressions on the faces of some of the men there was funny. Imagine if a guy had entered the ladies' restroom like that. There would have been a huge hue and cry!

I don't know what those ladies felt about their visit to the smelly men's public toilet, but my visit to the very clean and sanitized ladies restroom in the office was interesting. I was impressed by the fact that not only was the ladies' room functionally different from the men's restroom (no stand-up urinals, for example), there were also aesthetic differences. There seemed to be better lighting, especially at the mirror. The mirror itself was kind of tilted. The upper edge of the mirror was a few inches away from the wall, as if the mirror was leaning away from the wall or falling off it. Why was the mirror set like that? So that the women could look at themselves as taller men might see them? So that women could have a better look at their cleavage? I have no idea. There were tubes and vials of creams and lotions on the counter.

As I said, when I came out, I found my look-out person had abandoned her post. Thankfully, nobody walked in when I was inside. Imagine a female co-worker coming in and finding me there! How would I have explained it? The explanation is quite simple, although I am not sure how convincing it is. I was in urgent need of using the facilities, but found that the men's toilet was being cleaned. My client-manager, who had offered to drive me home, was in a hurry to leave. She did not want to wait for the cleaners and then me to finish our jobs. Since it was late in the day and almost nobody was working on the floor, she suggested that I use the ladies restroom, while she waited outside to make sure some female co-worker did not enter while I was still in there. That's what happened.

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.

Two-Minute Cooking School 3: Aaloo-paalak

Aaloo-paalak and Paranthas (Click for bigger pic)

Come on over for dinner! :-)

Recipe for Aaloo-paalak:
Aaloo-paalak is a North Indian dish. Aaloo is potato and paalak is spinach in most Indian languages. This is a yummy curry of potato and spinach. As with most other recipes in the Two Minute Cooking School, this may not be 100% authentic. But I can vouch for the fact that it is 100% yummy. And I am supported by my friends who have tasted this creation.

Ingredients: Potatoes and spinach in proportion. Little bit of chopped onions. A tiny amount of chopped tomatoes. Tomatoes are optional, but I like to use them. If not tomatoes, you will need lemon juice. Dried red chillies, as per your preferred spice level. You could use green chillies instead, but dried red chilli in green leaf curries is a South Indian tradition. I like the flavor of the red chilli in this dish. A tiny amount (and I do mean tiny) of your preferred curry masala powder. This masala is optional too. Tiny amount of ginger garlic-paste. Salt to taste.

Most of the ingredients mentioned above are required only in "tiny" quantities because spinach and potatoes together are quite flavorful in themselves. The taste of other ingredients must be really small and subtle, and not overwhelm the taste of spinach and potatoes.

Wash the spinach thoroughly. Put the wet and dripping spinach leaves into a cooking vessel, cover and keep on the stove-top. Set the flame between low and medium. You don't need to add any extra water to cook spinach, the wetness of the dripping leaves is enough. You will know the spinach is cooked when you open the vessel after a few minutes and see that the fluffy leaves have settled down into a soggy dark mass. Cook potatoes separately by boiling in water or using a pressure cooker. Peel and chop them into medium-sized pieces. Spinach and potatoes take different durations to cook. So, we cook them separately and not together in the curry.

Heat a little bit of oil in a pan. Just enough oil to fry the onions in. Add dried red chillies broken into pieces. When the red chillies turn a slight brown, add the chopped onions and fry them. When the onions are fried, add a tiny amount of ginger-garlic paste and little bit of chopped tomatoes. Fry some more, until the tomatoes become almost pulpy. Add the spinach and potatoes. Add salt to taste. If you did not use tomatoes, add lemon juice now. Add really tiny amount of the curry masala powder. Mix well. If the mix is too thick, you can add some water. Cover the pan and cook on a low flame for 4-5 minutes.

Aaloo-paalak is ready! You may serve it in a large cup garnished with a fresh slice of tomato and half a teaspoon of butter on top. This is great to eat with all kinds of Indian breads (roti, naan, chapaathi, paranthas, etc.), and also with rice.

Paranthas in picture above:
Featured above are Kawan brand frozen plain paranthas and they are really good. Just get them out of the freezer and heat on flat pan until they are golden brown on both sides. Transfer from pan to plate and gently pat on the sides, turning them round and round. Fluffy, layered, yummy paranthas are ready in two minutes!

Pimple on the P-Spot!

Warning: If yuck makes you puke, read no further. You have been warned.

Of all the places on the body, the ass or its vicinity is the worst place to get a pimple on. I know a pimple on the face can be an inconvenience before a hot date or interview or meeting or presentation, but a pimple on the ass can be a real pain in the... well, the ass! Depending on location and size, it can make normal everyday life hell for you. You can't sit comfortably and work, you can't sit comfortably and watch a movie or have dinner, you can't sit or squat for the Big Job in the toilet and you might not even be able to sleep in a comfortable, accustomed position on your back or side.

Believe me. I know. I have had a very bothersome pimple off and on for the past... oh my god, 5 years! Really? So long? Wow! My oldest memory of it is from my first visit to the US (in 2000), when a girl friend (not girlfriend) tried to burst it during a massage. But I digress...

Yes, I have had this one off and on for the past 5 years. And it is not even exactly on my ass. It is right in the center of my back, on the end of my spine, just where my back ends and ass begins, exactly on the border. It is the spot I have christened the P-Spot*!

I don't know how I got the pimple there first. I always blame one of my many unhealthy seating postures. Although you try to get up and walk around visiting co-workers, going to meetings, eating out, etc. on the average work day, spending considerable amount of time with your ass parked on a chair, in front of the computer, does lead to many unhealthy seating postures. One or more of these postures must cause the center of my back, the end of my spine, the exact border between my back and my butt, my P-Spot, to rub against the chair, and this might have caused some under the skin or over the skin trauma, which led to the first pimple. Long story short, once every 3 months or 6 months or 9 months, I get a pimple on that spot with which you are very familiar by now, the P-Spot.

The size of the swelling might be as small as a mustard seed or as big as a quarter (American 25-cent coin). When it is small, I may not even be consciously aware of it. It might only announce its presence with an unexpected spike of pain up my back, when I am in the shower, and I accidentally rub it when scrubbing my back. But when it is as big as a quarter, it is a bitch, a real bitch, I tell you! This happened once a few months ago and it happened again during the past 2-3 days. Although it is less painful right now and probably a little smaller than the last quarter-size appearance, the pain has been pretty bad both times. So bad in fact that, I have had a low fever because of the pain. No kidding!

It appears as big as a quarter, only when I look at it in the mirror. Otherwise, it feels like it is bigger - somewhere between the size of a golf ball and a tennis ball! And seems to weigh as much as the latter. Imagine such a ball embedded under your skin, right on the spot with which you are very familiar by now! It feels as if my waist-size has increased by 2-3 inches. It is not really that much, but it feels like it. The result is that the waist-band of my pants and my belt press right down on the pimple, making it whine all day like a bitch, sending vibes of pain radiating in expanding circles out from the P-Spot. And if I do anything like go from standing position to sitting position, or bend, or turn my body, just anything to stretch the skin over the swelling even a little bit, the whine turns into a howl and the pain radiates out from the P-Spot to all parts of my body like a tsunami wave!

Have I not showed it to a doctor yet? I have. In 2001 or 2002, when I was back in India. I visited a general physician who had one look at it and said it might need surgery and I should go see a specialist. I did not believe him. Surgery? For a mere pimple on the ass... I mean, the P-Spot? No way! The pimple disappeared after that and I came back to the US. Since then the pimple has been visiting me sometimes after a 3-month break, sometimes after 6- to 9-month hiatus. After each brief visit it disappears and I think it will not return again, but it does. It certainly does. And it is so easy to put-off visits to the doctor out of sheer laziness and also out of hesitation that this might really need surgery. I live alone, in this strange country, with no family at all here. What if this needs surgery and someone needs to take care of me? Friends? No way! I don't want to bother friends for the matter of a pimple! Fortunately, I will be going to India soon. This time I am determined to have it cured once and for all!

Meanwhile, whenever the pimple makes its full 25-cent-size appearance, I walk around as if I am pregnant. It's true. I have seen full-pregnant women walk around, adjusting their posture and walking style and stride to the additional size and weight, taking deep or short breaths, easing themselves onto a chair or bed slowly and carefully. That is how I am with this pimple on my P-Spot. Pregnant with a pimple!


*P-Spot: You probably thought that spot on the center of the back, at the end of the spine, right on the border between the back and the ass, has been christened as the P-Spot by yours truly because of the pimple. Actually, no. The name, to that unfortunate spot, has a more aesthetic background. Years ago, I had a friend for whom that spot was an extremely erogenous zone. She really enjoyed being pleasured there. And her name starts with a P. That, dear readers, is the sentiment which led me to call it the P-Spot!