24 Apr 2006
· travel
We’re on our way to peace, quiet and stupendous views of the Himalayas in the distant hill station of Kausani in Uttaranchal. Barely an hour out of Delhi, and the cow belt hits you, literally. Ambling senior citizens, regurgitating a late munch on some roadside grass provide ample experience in zig-zag driving. Cow on the right, swing to the left; tractor approaching on the wrong side, swing to the right; pothole ahoy, bump thump, oops too late, speeding Indica zooming up to kiss its maker, and a truck, swerve to avoid being spread like jam between them. Before the calm environs of Kausani can bring our BP down, the roads of UP and Uttaranchal are honour-bound to do everything to bring our BP up.
Continue reading →30 Mar 2006
· comment
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has filed a suit against Kellogg and Viacom for marketing unhealthy foods to kids. [Read SpongeBob SquarePants, Health Risk in ‘The Nation’]
What about parents? Do they have a role to play in deciding what their children will consume, and how much of it? Or is it ok for them too be too busy providing for the family to worry about what is it that they are providing? How many kids do you know who eat mountains of chips, drink buckets of soda, and are married to their screens – TV, PC, PSP, Gameboy…
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27 Mar 2006
· travel
When my son and I went to Ranthambhore I was not expecting much more than an opportunity to spend some time with my son away from TV, PC, PSP, GSM… Guess what, we encountered the big cat! Not one, but three – Mum and two of her fully grown. And, up close. So close that we could smell them. I exaggerate not! They were so close that I could not fit all three into one frame (I was using a telephoto).
Continue reading →26 Mar 2006
· comment
‘My father is a thief’ read the tattoo on the arm of a child in the 1980s hit Bollywood film Deewar. In genuine Bollywood tradition, the child grows up to become Big B and then the obvious happens.
Imagine tattooing that message for hundreds of years, generation after generation, on millions of children. No, this is not a Deewar sequel, nor is it a plot of some xenophobic fiction. Tens of millions of children have suffered this fate in India, starting sometime in 1871. Unfortunately, Big B never turns up in real life. Sure, there have been heroes who have made a difference – we’ll come to that in a moment – but first the background.
Continue reading →27 Feb 2006
· comment
Google’s submission to Chinese censorship rules is perhaps more significant than Yahoo, or Microsoft’s submission, mainly because Google has, over the years, become ubiquitous to search. More importantly, Google’s submission invites concern because many people see Google to be this ultimate poster boy of free speech – irrespective of whether they are aware of Google’s official policy of ‘don’t be evil’.
Google has responded to large-scale media criticism by saying, that this move will eventually expand access. At their Official Blog they say “Filtering our search results clearly compromises our mission. Failing to offer Google search at all to a fifth of the world’s population, however, does so far more severely.”
Continue reading →21 Feb 2006
· photo-features
Gregory Colbert has traveled the world for more than a decade and photographed encounters between humans and large animals in Burma, Sri Lanka, Egypt, India, Ethiopia and Kenya. This traveling photographer’s photo exhibition is, appropriately, housed in a 56,000-square-foot nomadic museum ( see photos of the museum). Designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, this temporary structure is constructed by stacking 152 steel cargo containers – the kind typically stacked on cargo ships and available all over the world in standard shape and size. Structural elements are made of recyclable and reusable materials too.
Continue reading →21 Feb 2006
· media
Thirty slides and one hour into the ‘utter meaninglessness of life without Oracle’ presentation I began to wonder if I had been suckered into paying to hear sales pitches that I did not understand or care for. This was just the first presentation of the first morning of LINUX Asia (February 8 to 10, 2006, New Delhi); the prospect of enduring such an onslaught for three more days was daunting to say the least.
Continue reading →02 Feb 2006
· comment
My sympathies to all the big shot designers who lost there outlets and their high-profile 1MG Road address. Really, I know it hurts to loose something that you have paid for – even if you buy Liz Claiborne rip-off and get a good deal on it… a loss is a loss. Similarly…
My sympathies go out to all the villagers who have land adjacent to radial roads like the MG Road. The plan for making fancy air-conditioned malls will have to be shelved. Perhaps the rental and sale market will tank…
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07 Jan 2006
· travel
“So you were in Goa for New Year!” is the question I have been asked repeatedly over the last week or so. I guess it must be important to be there at that time, though I did not notice any change in the water, sand or sun – all of it was as pleasant as ever. To us that was all that really mattered.
I must mention, though, that the quality of service and food at the hotel we stayed in was not as good as it was on our previous visit (which was not on the ‘New Year’). This is, perhaps, attributable to the 100% occupancy the hotel witnesses at this time of the year – the extra 10 percentage point occupancy must make a much greater difference on quality than what a layperson like me believes. Or perhaps the hotel is more established now and doesn’t need to worry about quality any more! Either way, two days later, as the occupancy dropped to 93 per cent (according to hotel sources), the food quality gallopped upwards and waiters and attendants were always within whistling distance.
Continue reading →05 Dec 2005
· comment
‘You can have any color Model T you want, as long as it is black’ is a famous Henry Ford quote from a long time ago. Or is it? No, no, it is still a Ford quote, but I am not sure if it is from a long time ago. That’s the way I felt when I was recently at a car dealer’s showroom. It not only felt like a million years away from the 21st century buzz word called ‘mass customization’ but I came back feeling that the company was out to make a sucker of me.
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