Flavour of the minute

Winding up.

2004-09-27T09:04:00.000-07:00

I don't know who reads this page. But if someone does, this post is for him/her.

The motivation: A gmail id.

Well, thats how this blog started. Someone told me google gives gmail invites to regular bloggers. That thought (and the cool @gmail.com mail id) was enough inspiration for me to attempt something as difficult (for me) as regular blogging.

I did finally get a gmail id. But not coz I blogged, but because one of the blokes whom I know got a chance to invite me. And he did. Result achieved.

Consequently, the motivation to write has gone. This blog was my flavour of the minute in some distant past.... the flavour of this minute is doom3........ i have no idea what the flavour would be say 5 minutes or 5 days into the future.

Visitors might have noticed that this page has stayed unupdated for quite a while. And thus it shall remain, from now on............... thanks for your time and the valuable comments.

Adieu forever.
/rk

Up in the morn !

2004-05-30T04:32:00.000-07:00

Being an author is no easy task, especially when you are a blogger. To be in circulation, one has to keep coming up with the goods more frequently then when one merely writes books.Even if one does not deliver for a couple of weeks, the world stops to stop by the blog and bids bye bye to the budding author.

My good fans, Mr. William Parcher and Mr. Charles Herman have been pestering me to write the next installment of the body building saga. One cannot disappoint one's fans and still hope to continue as a writer. Hence, I decided to bite the bullet and pen, er, type, the next episode of the gym chronicles. Mr.Parcher and Mr. Herman, you asked for it, and you get it........

(BackGround)
An expanding waistline forces self, along with a friend X, to join a gym. The muscular well being of the chaps in the gym forces self to buy the "New encyclopedia of modern body building", by Arnold Schwarzenegger for inspiration.
(/Background)

Desiring some more company in the gym, X forced two of his friends Y and Z to join "The Gym" that we visit regularly. So, in the mornings, the four of us battle the forces of nature (that urge us NOT to leave the comfort of the bed) and head out to face the stiff tests in the gym. Well, I put it a bit mildly, since the process of making it to the gym is rather elaborate compared to the one-line description I have given above. Let me describe this procedure properly.......

Due to the curse of some strange god, I was assigned the rather tedious task of waking up all the lazy bones in the morning to head out to the gym. I should have been smart enough to talk myself out of this, but when the other chaps praised me for being the only one in the group to get up at the unearthly hour of 8.30 am everyday, ego, that blasted thing, was boosted. This resulted in me accepting this rather crummy task of ruining the sleep of the other members of the group.

And being rather attached to the comforts of the bed, I find that this whole process of organizing and synchronizing the gym visits rather a chore.But, one does not grumble. Arnold Schwarzenegger would have gladly woken up 20 fellows to visit the gym, if needed. One just follows the footsteps of the mighty.

My alarm clock is scheduled to ring some 15 minutes or so before "the early birds" of the worm catching fame themselves arise. This is to allow me to cheat by hitting the snooze button on the alarm no less than four times, and thus try to delay the inevitable by another 20 minutes or so. In the mean time, I try to snooze, and simultaneously think of some good reason why I should not be exercising on that particular day, little realizing how the latter task needs the full attention of the mind and should not be attempted while snoozing.

Finally, after the fourth snooze, I give up on the reasoning front, and rise from the bed. After the brushing etc, next come the "waking up others" portion of the morning.

The idea is that I give the other three chaps a call on their mobile phones, and they jump up from their beds, get ready, and come to the gym. Well, the most important cog in the wheel is these chaps waking up on hearing the ringing of the phone. It seldom works.

X, Y and Z, being eager to go to the gym in the morning, never fail to set an alarm. Trouble is, they never hear it ringing, rendering it necessary for self to personally issue the wake up calls to these individuals without fail every morning. A crowing rooster might fail in its duty to wake up the general public, but self, being so devoted, seldom fails to put in efforts to wake up these chaps.

X is one of those lucky souls who sleep so soundly that the explosion of the atom bomb would fail so much as to stir him in his sleep. Needless to say, he never hears the alarm. So, it is necessary to call him to wake him up. The trouble is, he sleeps on top of his phone, thus muffling any feeble ringing sound the device contrives to produce upon receiving a call. With some luck, he stirs after the 39th ring, sleepily promises to get up in 5.25 minutes, and promptly falls asleep again.

Y has developed some advanced sense, in addition to the five normal senses thatmere humans, and the sixth sense, that some select souls, are blessed with. He has the ability to turn off the alarm without ruining his sleep. But, luckily, he responds to the phone call, and gets up without fail (though, being a like minded soul, he does make an attempt at thinking up a good story for not coming to the gym on that morning).

Z is a person who believes in "Late to bed, and very late to rise". But one must appreciate the fact that he is a book lover. Like all book lovers, he falls asleep while reading (though one must also say that, unlike self who sleeps off after about 3 pages with any book, this chap lasts a good 2-3 hours before hitting the pillow). Consequently, he regularly goes to sleep at 1.00 am, which is good for a chap whose intentions are merely to report late for duty, but which is not good enough for a chap who has to attend the gym before reporting late for duty. Self, after calling him, extracts from him the promise to get up after 10 minutes. Then self proceeds to wake up X once more, and remind him that the promised 5 minutes are up and that he should be reporting at the gym soon.

Having done all this hard work, I refresh myself with a cup of tea, get dressed and report at the gym. There I find that X,Y and Z have already arrived, and have been waiting for me for the last 10 minutes. In spite of being the first of the lot to get up, I am the last to reach "The Gym" !!!

PS : For a clue to the identities of Mr. Parcher and Mr. Herman, please refer to the movie the "A Beautiful Mind".....

Farming ideas

2004-05-19T05:59:00.000-07:00

Recently I was subject to one of the longest and noisiest shows in the media. It was the coverage of the elections in the largest democracy in the world, my motherland, India.
While the election results surprised many and the shocks have not died down yet, that will occupy the center stage in some other blog. Here, we shall exclusively focus on one of the manifestoes in circulation in these elections.

The manifesto in question had a small but important item. Free power to farmers. While this is a populist move aimed at helping the rather impoverished group of farmers, it also is a form of appeasing the rich and well to do farmers. I shall not question the logic and feasibility of this point, but rather shall try to peek into the future and identify the repercussions in the society as a result of this (maybe myopic) move.

If this scheme is implemented and found to be a resounding success, it will cease to be an issue in the elections, since every party that contests the elections will automatically be expected not to touch it. So, they will start the search for greener pastures. For example, why not free water to farmers? After all, farmers need water more than electricity, and hence water should have been made free before electricity. Hence, for a couple of elections, "Free water to farmers" shall be the cry of the different warring factions, and the party that lets it flow will take it all.

Ok. So now electricity and water are free. What next? Since India is a predominantly agricultural land, appeasement of farmers will be a never-ending affair. Till there is a single farmer left unappeased, the powers that be cannot have an undisturbed sleep at night. They will be spending sleepless nights doing searches like "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&q=what+farmers+want&btnG=Search" and that sort. Or, taking a cue from H2G2 (which, for the uninitiated, stands for "The Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy") a super computer might be created just to find out the answer to this question.

The answer that might be thrown up would be land. And then, fertilizers, followed by agricultural tools, etc etc. We would soon reach a stage where the farmer is in a position to "name it and have it for free". Soon, the ambition of every kid would be to become not an engineer or a doctor, but a farmer. Farming would overtake politics and movies as the most lucrative business, with the maximum returns for the minimum effort.

Taking this a few steps further, the government would be pressurized by the "poor" farmers to buy their produce at rates higher than the market price, and then sell it to the public (a majority of whom would be farmers themselves) at a nominal price. Some people would convince others that small losses of the order of a couple of trillion million zillion rupees should not be allowed to hijack the program of mass upliftment.

Encouraged by all this, more and more people would go back to agriculture, and technology would take the back seat. After all, who needs technology when the government can provide everything for free, and when it can easily be imported? Books like "Farming for dummies" and "How to become the farmer today" would become best sellers. Farmers would undertake foreign tours to try and encourage foreign countries to outsource some of their farming needs to India.

Encouraging scenario. Maybe I should buy that 30X40 plot and start farming. Instead of making money I am wasting my time typing this blog.

My dear farmland, here I come!

New tool to track comments

2004-05-17T07:29:00.000-07:00

Driven by my constant nagging and advertising, one of my friends finally decided to bite the bullet. He fired up the browser, and keyed in the address at which this blog resided in cyber space.
Now, this chap in question is a guy who can recognize a good thing when he sees it. Hence, having given a cursory glance at first, and having decided this was indeed one of those good things that enrich the reader if he reads it; he proceeded to read it from start to finish.
Having done that, being impulsive by nature, he decided to join the sacred club of writers.

Just as he finished congratulating himself on this brainwave, he spotted in a fatal flaw in this master plan. What would he write about? It was at this point that he decided to join another sacred club - constructive criticism club. The members of this club disperse constructive criticism even when it is not asked for. Disperse is not the word. They shove it down the throat and fill you up to your neck. They overwhelm you with so much feedback that you have to respond in kind (by offering constructive criticism of their criticisms.).

I guess I am wandering too much away from the topic. To think was to act with this chap, and he proceeded to click the 'Comments' link with as much enthusiasm as a kid who is breaking his first toy. It was then that he stumbled upon the locked gate. The blogger refused to accept his comments.

It told him in some rather impolite terms (or so he claims) that unless he registered himself with the blogger, he would be able to hear (or see) all but cannot talk back. Being a strong personality himself, he proceeded to do precisely this. Once he had registered, he was able to indulge in his favorite sport of constructive criticism, and felt as relieved as if a big weight was lifted from his mind.

Anyway, the point of importance was, unless you registered, you could not indulge in constructive criticism. Simple logic tells me that there are more souls whose hobby is constructive criticism that those who register at blogspot. Hence, to make the life of those souls a bit easier, I have enlisted the support of haloscan to improve the commenting facility in my blog.

So, go ahead, and fulfill the impulse to divulge some constructive criticism. And don’t hesitate just because you shudder at the thought of registering at blogger to give that comment. With haloscan, the comments are really just a click away!

Special thanks to bookseeker for pointing me to haloscan.

PS: The body building adventures shall continue in the next blog. Having severely strained my rather limited writing skills, I must wait a couple of days before attempting to write another piece.

Procuring that book

2004-05-13T06:05:00.000-07:00

(Background)
An expanding waistline, and an embarrassing situation forces the undersigned to join a gym in an attempt to slim down, maybe build some muscle and hopefully enlarge the social circle. Read ahead.
(End of Background)

The first few days in the gym were uneventful. That is, other than the regular, albeit unsuccessful attempts at lifting the weights in the gym, the calisthenics, the regular panting and puffing and the consequent inability to carry out even the most basic action without experiencing some muscular pain.

This general feeling of despondency (at the insufficient body strength at my disposal) was aggravated by the extravagant flaunting of muscular strength by some of the regular members of the gym. These characters lifted weights as though they had a point or two to prove to atlas. (Discussions with my friends, who visit other gyms, lead me to the conclusion that these overbuilt variety seem to haunt all gyms.). I started thinking that unless some solid steps were taken, or rather, some solid weights were lifted, I would be left behind. It hurts to see some bloke lift some weight, which is almost ten times the weight that you are lifting, and then he puts his weight down, and gives you a patronizing smile.

Having decided that something needed to be done, the next course of action was to try to decide what had to be done. Some strategic thinking led me to the conclusion that some extra poundage had to be lifted daily to try and narrow the gap between self and the musculars. The instructions which the instructor had instructed me seemed insufficient, considering the increase in size of my muscles.

I happened to chance upon a TV program that was made on the life of the famed body builder, Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was one of those moments of realization, and I decided this was the bloke I was going to follow to build those muscles. The program also mentioned a book this bloke had written, ostensibly to help people take their first steps in bodybuilding. The fact that the book was as heavy as a dumb bell was a bonus.

So, out went I to procure the book. My impulse was to walk to the counter with the book in my hand. A couple of steps towards the counter with the book, and I realized my mistake. I looked around for a trolley in which I could place the book and just push it to the counter. I also realized that I needed a few more sessions in the gym with the weights before I could muster enough strength to turn the pages of the book.

The ride back home was also difficult. The bike was always insisting on putting up a show by riding only on the back wheel. The front wheel stayed up from the ground. A closer inspection revealed that the book was placed towards the rear end of the bike, and this was causing the trouble. Somehow I managed to reach home without any major mishaps (the book once slipped and fell on a pedestrian, but he was rather lucky to get away only with a broken toe. I escaped since the public deemed it an accident).

More of my adventures later.

Of Body building and books

2004-05-10T22:50:00.000-07:00

An extremely sedentary life sytle, accompained by growing accustoming of my digestive system to the available food resulted naturally in an expanding waistline. The seeds of doubt were sown in my mind upon a recent visit to a clothes shop.

I subjected the attendant to a test of sorts, and challenged him to prove his worth by telling me my waist size without the aid of any contraptions(geenrally used to aid in measurement). He responsed with a guarded "34" , and for an instant I was filled with happiness at having such a good change to snub him.

However, this happiness was rather shortlived. Upon asking him to measure my waist (this time with the aid of a measuring tape), my feeling was not unlike that of a hard hitting batsman who, having dispatched the half volley on leg stump in the air towards the boundary on mid-wicket, finds out that he has mistimed the ball by about 1.5 micro seconds, and instead of clearing deep mid-wicket, he has hit it in such a way that to complete the catch the fielder at deep midwicket has to move an exact distance of 3 milli metres. The measuring tape supported that chaps claims to be a master measurer, and hence, I had to swallow a couple of bitter pills in the following order
a) My claims at knowing my own waist size came to a naught
b) My waist, which while not likely to set fire the stage in any Mr.World contest, had hitherto been rather well behaved and kept itself to reasonable dimensions.

Now it was beginning to assert its independence by growing in size without my consent, and if I did not nip this behaviour in the bud, one day it would be totally out of control. This set me thinking on the various methods by which I could assert my control (over my own waist !).

Having rejected such options as
a) Consuming less food or
b) going for some highly specialized diet program where I get to eat all the foods I hate, and on top of that, have to pay someone to be told that
I settled on the slightly better option of visiting the local health club on a regular basis. (I must admit I had some rather nefarious schemes to expand my social circle through these visits as well).

Along with a friend (who shall be called X in keeping up with the algebraic traditions) I visited the health club, and after shelling out what was a not unhefty sum, procured the permission to visit the club, on a regular basis, on all days.

In these pages, I would log (oops, blog) the events that were kicked off the minute we decided to join the health club.

More later.......