Your cell phone or your spouse ?

If your spouse lost his/her cellphone would you lend yours ?

The WSJ reports:
To illustrate how personal mobile technology has become for people, Mooly Eden, VP and GM of Intel’s mobile platforms group asked his audience how many had cellphones. All raised their hands. Then he asked how many were married; a somewhat smaller number responded. Then Eden asked how many were happily married; most of the same hands went up.

Finally, Eden asked the people who said they are happily married whether they would hand over their own cellphone if their spouse lost his or hers. No hands went up. “That is my point,” he said. “That is personalization.”

There's love and affection and then there are cell phones. We all have our priorities !

What's changed in ten years ?

In 1999, the stock market was behaving as though gravity did not exist, people were trying to sell dogfood on the Internet, Google was not much more than a thought experiment and India had 1.2 million mobile subscribers (it's 400 million now).

On the personal front, I'm back in Bangalore after ten years, and the city has become a bloated caricature of it's previous self.

NASA's Earth observatory has a great set of images cataloging these changes. Urbanization has increased and so has the deforestation of the Amazon rain forests and the ozone hole. Arctic ice has declined, many water bodies have shrunk.

Where will be be in 2019 ?

In Bangalore, I expect we will have better public transport, more disputes about water, children demanding better education, more private enterprise and lesser government in daily life.

Voting for the Worst

With the elections fast approaching in India, the leading political parties - BJP and Congress - have started blitzing websites with ads.

However, it appears that the electronic campaigning gurus in both parties have not paid much attention to where their ads appear.

Both the BJP and Congress  have been competing for banner space in a website called Vote For the Worst whose charter is to ""vote en masse for the contestant that we feel provides the most entertaining performances"

It appears that both parties have a good chance of winning in the Vote for the Worst segment  - but the Congress campaign, centered on the Mango Man (Aam Aadmi)  has my Vote for the Worst - for now.

False prophets

With the large number of gurus, tantriks, priests and prophets in the market and in recessionary times, you need to find yourself a good guide.

However, you should know that your tantrik is up to no good when he asks for Rs.300,000 to book air tickets and catch a rhino.

According to the complaint that the 30-year old woman who was looking for a groom filed, "Shah said that sacrificing a rhino would remove all obstacles and within a week's time I'd get married. I paid Rs 2.95 lakh to perform the puja. He told me that he would book air tickets to go to UP to catch a Rhino and will return after completing the puja."

How to Do

Probably as part of our culture, or as part of our education, we've been indoctrinated to aim for accuracy and completion in our work and that work is not done until it has attained both these objectives.

Bob Sutton's "The Cult of Done" Manifesto has a different take on "doing" things

• There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
  
• Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
  
• There is no editing stage.
  
• Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.
  
• Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
  
• The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
  
• Once you're done you can throw it away.
  
• Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
  
• People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
  
• Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
  
• Destruction is a variant of done.
  
• If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
  
• Done is the engine of more.
  

More on work here.

"The Hindu" vs NY Times on China

N.Ram, the red-flag waving editor of The Hindu and champion of the People's Liberation Army, just returned from a trip to Tibet and reports that the atmosphere was "relaxed". He added that there was no sign of strain or suppression there as people were filled with excitement and the atmosphere was festive. He also says, "The contrast between the old and the new is very powerful, demonstrating what the Chinese government and the system have done for Tibet.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that authorities have imposed an unofficial state of martial law on the vast highlands where ethnic Tibetans live, with thousands of troops occupying areas they fear could erupt in renewed rioting on a momentous anniversary next week. And Beijing is determined to keep foreigners from seeing the mass deployment.

The NY Times also reports that "many of China’s six million Tibetans chose not to celebrate Losar, the Tibetan New Year, in order to mourn Tibetans who suffered during last year’s clashes", while Ram states “We witnessed fewer people in work places as they went back home to celebrate the New Year,” he noted. He added that there was no sign of strain or suppression there as people were filled with excitement and the atmosphere was festive.

Of course, as usual, The Hindu will dismiss all reports of dissent in China as more Western propaganda. Mr.Ram has been a traditional opponent of the right of Tibetans to self-determination and their long history of independence from China.

The Hindu's readers would appreciate it if Mr.Ram would visit the real Tibet instead of the Potemkin villages that the Chinese have setup for their favored journalists.

Protesting in India

India has been the homeground to a number of unique methods of protesting. 

Of course, the traditional protests of burning effigies, walk-outs, sit-outs, stand-ins still continues, but over the course of time new methods have evolved.

Gandhiji started it with his Satyagrahas, Salt March and hunger fasts.

Hunger fasts have been transformed from an event where one individual fasts until his demands have been met or he has died to a relay fast where protesting members take turns in fasting for a few hours. 

Every year, Valentine's Day is a struggle between right wing nut cases trying to teach "Indian culture" to the masses and a bunch of people trying to out-West the West in Public Displays of Affection. This year's struggle resulted  in the the Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women sending pink underwears to a right-wing group which was against Public Displays of Affection.

Now, the Kannada Chalavali Vatal Paksha president, has challenged the Governor, Chief Minister, Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court and Chief Secretary to find public toilets to relieve themselves between their offices and the Lalbagh. He also said that he would continue his unique protest of “urinating” in front of residences of dignitaries to draw the attention of State Government to build sufficient number of public toilets. 

The challenge that today's protestor faces is to come up with a unique method of protesting that inconveniences the most number of people for the maximum amount of time and gains the most press coverage. Burning buses and stoning trains is pass'e. What's an innovative protestor to do ?

Creating Ourselves

Much has been written, and spoken, about the historic inauguration of Barack Obama as the first African-American President of the United States. But I thought Mr.Obama said it best himself, in the article he wrote for Time magazine in 2005: "“...a larger, fundamental element of American life — the enduring belief that we can constantly remake ourselves to fit our larger dreams.”

Birding at Kumarakom

We'd heard so much about Kumarakom, and the thousands of birds that make this area their home every winter, and we decided that a trip to Kerala would not be complete without a visit to this avian resort.

As soon as we entered, we were told by the staff at the gate that we had come at the wrong time and that we should come in May-June for the best bird sightings. We were then hustled into purchasing a "Safari tour" which for most of the time consisted of a Kerala State Tourism Development Corporation employee in a loud motorboat scaring the birds away.

A few houseboats on the Vembanad lake cruised by, fully equipped with satellite TV dishes, Air Conditioners and deck chairs. In the peak December holiday season they rent for about Rs.12,000 per day.

Once we crossed the houseboats, and cut the motor, we got sight of some of the birds we had come to see.

The walking tour, which took us through dense vegetation showed some birds and marketing that we had not seen earlier. One of the villagers, who lived in nearby areas, offered to take us in a canoe, reeling off a list of bird names - Grey Heron, Purple Swamp hen, Little Egret, Cormorants - that we could see if we went with him. We had seen all of these and more in the boat trip, so we decided to walk along the water's edge. We would have seen a lot more birds, had it not been for noisy tourists talking loudly about dinner plans and shooing away all the birds.

Three hours later, we were back on the road to Kottayam. Inspite of the KSTDC's efforts, Kumarakom is still a great place to visit and there would probably be a lot more birds to see if the government prohibited motorboats and replaced them by row-boats as they have done in Ranganathittu.

Traveling by Indian Railways

After almost a decade, I made reservations for traveling by Indian Railways and the experience has been as easy as booking an air ticket on Southwest Airlines.

When I was in school, and the designated ticket-booker at home, one had to leave home early enough (and 30 days in advance) to reach the booking counter in Madras Central at 7 AM when the counter opened, , fill the form with the passenger names, ages and desired berth (UB/LB) and then watch the ticketing agent enter in all the details with a single finger. This would be followed by a confirmation of ticket availability, or  a discussion on whether RAC 26 had a chance of getting confirmed, give exact change or go back with exact change to pick up the tickets.

Cleartrip has removed much of the excitement (and pain) of getting the cardboard tickets (before computer-printed tickets were available) - now it's enter the orign and destination, the date and class, pay and print. 

We've planned a completely train-centric holiday this year-end with travel from Bangalore to Chennai to Shoranur and Trivandrum. It would be good not to spend 90 minutes to reach the airport, go through security, bad airplane food, cramped middle-row seats and waiting for luggage.  

Watch this space !