A for Arjun, B for Brahma

It seems that textbooks have been doctored in Jharkand and elsewhere , funded by Murli Manohar Joshi the time when he was education minister to include things like the title of this post.
If it wasn't shocking , it would be hilarious.
The catholics in the bible belt refuse to teach darwins theory of Evolution , preferring the Biblical theory of Creationism. The Madrasas teach , well i do not know what , but seeing the horrid state of poor muslims in India , the Madrasas cant possibly be teaching them anything good.
So this affliction of mixing education in religion is not restricted to India. However i wonder who is it these self styled champions of their cause are helping. It certainly cant be the people who follow their teachings. All they are doing is ensuring that their followers remain as stupid as sheep(with apologies to the sheep). Oh wait i get it.
My mother believes that Hindus will reject any such attempt to saffronise textbooks.
Me I'm always the pessimist in the family

How to Choose Your Next Book

There are times when you read a book and feel sorry it's ending(Currently this book is Lucifer) and at the same time the book is so good you cant wait to see what it's end is. But end it shall. And you are left with "What Next?"
Read everything that you can lay your hands on of the author you like. A lot of people I know are genre readers(I like Science Fiction, Hard Boiled Crime etc) . This is a mistake. Its far better to read all types of books from an author you like, rather than read every book of the genre you like. If that does not make sense try it out.
Read everything that friends recommend to you as good. Preferrably borrow the book from them rather than buying your own copy.
Trust your instincts when browsing in a bookstore.
Dont believe the professional reviews you read(for better or for worse). Where someone is actually getting paid to do a job.
Dont believe the award ceremonies(Like the Booker). Awards are neither necessary nor sufficient for a good book. This does not ofcourse mean that you shouldnt read these books.
Dont believe the top 10 booksellers list. Popular books are not necessarily good books

Ambanis

Is everyone as tired of this whole squabble?. Even as children we knew a riddle , how do you get two children to divide a cake equally ? .
You let one sibling cut the cake and let the other one choose.

A Catholic Wedding

I went to a catholic wedding the last week. The bride in question was my mom's good friends
daughter. I have only attended the church part of the ceremony once, for my friends sister's
wedding. This time i decided to pass the church ceremony. All these ceremonies are too solemn for
my liking. They are more reminiscent of funerals. In my more cynical moods i think i know why
that is so. We even used to joke that for my wedding , the schmucks would drive me to the wedding
in funeral casket. Anyway so i braved the Andheri traffic and reached the wedding reception. It always has struck me
how different a Catholic wedding reception is different from the varied Indian Styles. There is a
distinct effort made to have a good time , whereas the other Indian reception are a much more
formal effort with suitably grim expressions on the faces of the bride, the groom and immediate
family. Hmm bride's mother is looking suitably harried, I have to sit at a table with all my mom's ex
office colleagues. Unsurprisingly I'm the only one of my age group. Time to survey the
*surroundings* . Oh no not a pretty sight to be found. Ok maybe we are a bit early. People are
just starting to roll in , ah well all marriages are IST. Still not many sights to concentrate
on. I have sat in a bad location , have to keep performing the exorcist maneuver to look around. The host of ceremonies is a typical Goan Catholic gent , insists on making sidey jokes . Time to
gather round and throw confetti on the bride. Is this the bride? She looks different from what i
remember her to look like. Never ceases to amaze me how women can change their look and feel
completely. A different hairstyle , a different dress , a dab of makeup and voila new woman...I
think the surprise is writ large on my face ... Possibly the bride notices this and says 'Hi
deepak'. Ah just throw the damn confetti and get it over with. Hmm i thought it was supposed to
be rice...More bad jokes from the host. The cake is cut. The toast is uneventful , I don't take the wine .
Feel awkward as the only guy standing up without the wine glass in his hand. Time for the wedding
march . Always bring back (bad) memories of friends sisters wedding. Time for the first dance ,
the circle is all holding balloons. Moms colleagues ask why I'm not dancing with anyone. Yah right. The dance begins , I don't recognize the song. Balloons are released. Another powerful sight , The
balloons rising high to escape into the sky, why does it impress us so. Is it the silent yearning
to be free? Home the second best girl is decent looking. Another woman is red is decent as well.
Perhaps this is not a complete waste of a day. Time to rush to eat before the queue begins. Oops we have reached before the bride and groom .Have
to wait looking around like fools till they have sampled everything. Ok food is decent. Time to
go on stage. Meet brides mom with the good looking best girl. Her name is some hegde .. My community. Didn't know they made them this way in the shetty community except in the movies of course. Sudden apprehension of arranged marriage strikes me. I don't have to worry , the female seems to completely ignore me anyhow , nothing new there. Go on stage now . Pose for photograph. Yeah time to go home. Oh no it strikes the middle aged crowd they haven't had the ice creams. A brief debate ensues and the Ice Cream wins. I have a bad throat and cant partake. Someone brings up the topic of when my marriage is .Arrgh why is so difficult for people to understand that not everyone wants to get married when they are 27. Oh no this topic is now picked up by everyone. Oh wait for it now Inter Community marriages are brought up. My parents are probably paranoid about this anyway hoping that i wont follow in my brothers footsteps (though i have every intention of doing so)10 o'clock loudspeakers off. In two minds about this ban. Finally time to go home. Conclusion : Court Marriage is the only sane alternative.

Logic and rationality

I was reading about Ad Hominem which is a Logical Fallacy wherein you attack/defend the person making the proposition rather than the proposition do itself. We have all at some time or the other fallen prey to this fallacy.
What interested me was one of the examples
"Tobacco company representatives are wrong when they say smoking doesn't seriously affect your health, because they're just defending their own multi-million-dollar financial interests."
As the article also goes on to point out "It is important to note that the above argument is not irrational although it is not correct in strict logic"
I have i think always believed logic and rational to be synonyms of each other which as the above argument indicates is clearly NOT the case.
Given a choice I'd think I'd rather be logical than rational , though it is of course easier said than done

1984

The Home Minister of Maharashtra , RR Patil has decided to ban dance bars. The reason Dance Bar corrupt the youth and hence are a evil influence on society. My mother evidently agrees , also stating that 95% of the girls are illegal Bangladeshis. The Midday Newspaper which is trying desparately to ape The Sun style of newspapers runs headline after headline stating how x people will lose thier jobs , how the people are hardworking etc. etc. and so forth. An article in The Times (Westside plus) also takes umbrage at the politicians stating that most of them cant differentiate their elbows from their arse. I would have used face instead of elbow.
There is so much to comment on this sorry circus, but now i dont have the stomach for it so i'll summarize
My own views have always been , let the people choose whatever it is they want to do. If they want to spend their time visiting dance bars let them. if the women feel their only way of livelihood is dancing somewhere , let them.

But here's the problem , we Indians have chosen Democracy as our chosen form of governance. We have elected this government and thats it. We cant do anything about its policies. The best we can hope for is 5 years down the line we'll kick these guys out and replace them with the saffron brigade who will decide what we can wear and what festivals we should celebrate. And after 5 more years we will be back to this same government.
Ideally ofcourse the best form of governance is anarchy. But we have been so conditioned that if you think of a synonym for anarchy chances are you will come up with chaos. Anarchy is the absence of leaders (good ones or bad ones). People take responsibility for their actions. Our leaders will have you believe that this will lead to Chaos and Might is Right. Well then we will be no worse of than we are now.
Oh yes , Im all in favor of the theory that the single biggest corrupt influence on everyone not just the youth are our Politicians. And that we ban the whole lot.

Womens Cricket

How is it that the Indian men's cricket team can get thrashed yet we follow each word of their (lack of) exploits whereas the womens team can reach the finals of the world cup and no one raises a peep. There doesnt even seem to be live coverage on any of the television channels.
Talk about worshipping false gods!

Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin

The so called makeover of Jassi hasnt been well received by the audience. There are two things that bother me here.
What is it about the movies we watch , the serials we see,the Ads that are made that worship beauty? . The fair and lovely ads are especially offensive. In the case of JJKN, if the twist in the tale was to illustrate how people react differently to essentially the same woman and was meant as a social satire, it would probably be a groundbreaking serial. Sadly i think this is more the Kuch Kuch Hota Hain type of story, for a female to get her man she must be pretty (and after mariage wear only traditional Indian dresses). Plain Janes can only win best supporting actress.

And the hypocritcal audience. While we see this on TV , we'd prefer the underdog. When it comes to our lives we'd mostly ignore the plain and ugly. And prefer to stare at the babes.

The only question is which is the cause and which is the effect?

F1

A powerful red machine swerves and shoves a black vehicle from the racing line. The black vehicle is foreced to break , but this causes the yellow car behind to ram into it. The drivers get out and shake their fists at each other and hurl expletives. The Red machine is of course the BEST buses. The black vehicle is the auto. We do have the analogues of the minardi - the cyclers , destined to be overtaken or knocked of. There is of course one difference. In F1 the bravest guys are the drivers. In mumbai the bravest are the pedestrians.
If F! increased the number of cars to say 100 and had people racing in both directions (no lanes) Kartikeyan would win

Video games and Maturity

A colleague asked me for my copy of Xonix and Metal Marines and SuperBikes which brought me back memories of my ITP days. SuperBikes was *The* game of our training batch. Other batches prefferred Road Rash or Age of Empires or An an aeroplane fight game. This was of course played over the network in blatant violation of company policies. And we carried this habit when we were finally put on projects as well. In fact our proper introduction to one of the projects project manager was only complete when he joined us for a round. Sometimes we played snooker tournaments.
Somehow however we have stopped playing any games now. I cant quite figure out why. The company rules are the same now as they were before. We haven't matured. And we still look back at the good ol' days with fondness.
I suspect that time has had its affect on us. And the devil may care attitude has been dropped by most of us. We care much more of the consequences now than we did then. Is this finally a sign of the rebellious streak being behind us and now we are the staid members of society conforming to its every rule?

Teaching subjects

A follow up to the Teaching entry.
I wonder how students would receive an integrated training course.
Case In point wing's of fire. Let's say we rewrite this book (or publish supplements to it) which achieve the following
A. For every quotation which is excerpted , we have the entire poem (prose).
B. For say the rockets and satellites we include the physics behind it all (like perhaps what is a geostationary orbit - what is a geosynchronous orbit)
C. Since most physics includes mathematics we include the relevant bits
D. We trace the history of rocket science from the times of Tipu Sultan
E. We add section dealing with the right and wrongs of pursuing weapons development as opposed to the other ways the same resources could have been utilised. Include assignments like debates on the same
Which would cover science,maths, english, moral science,history.
You could of course do similar things with say A Discovery of India (though the range of subjects covered would probably substitute geography with science)
Would students prefer doing this? or do they prefer the disjointed way subjects are thought today ? You learn say Integration but you practically see its application(if at all) only two years later.
And which way is better?

Weekly Roundup

America has sold some F-16's to Pakistan and has offered some to India (F-18's maybe). I hope we aren't stupid enough to fall for this (or buying any equipment from germany,israel etc. as tit for tat). But i dont have much hope.

With the pope's decision to die in his room in the vatican (according to newspapers atleast) as opposed to full medical treatment in some hospital, i wonder what it says for the people who are champions of the pro -life cause ? since most of these people are pro lifers because of their (catholic) religion. (This is not to say there aren't exceptions - there is atleast one - me!).
Indian mythology i guess supports the right for a person to choose when he dies (Bhishma pitamaha , the various samadhis, the fourth stage in the vedas are for me equivalents) but Indian law does not allow it.

And so India wins the first one day. And one of the reasons is Ganguly's astute captaincy! And though i happen to think Ganguly is a good captain ( who can forget that he succesfully irritated steve waugh and rattled the australians) our newspapers (or rather the reporters) are amazingly fickle. Yes i know this isnt exactly news.

A good one in mindsport
Theres a problem set by a certain Mr VS tulpule. he says that the first two digits of his telephone number are 2 and 5. Of the remaining 6 two digits are repeated twice and two digits occur once. Different numbers can be made arranging these 6 numbers and the sum of all combinations is (excluding the actual one) is 119551923. And those who can figure it out can call him.
The first answer has an elaborate mathematical proof which figures out the answer.
The second one searched the telephone directory and got 3 VS tulpule's and only one has a number beginning 25
MS implies the second method needs you to say bye bye to your brains. On the contrary its a highly elegant, lateral solution.