Ladakh Trek

I flew to Delhi on the 20th, on my way to Ladakh for a trek that I have been planning for years now.

I've been mocked at and ridiculed for my paranoia about missing a flight, train or bus. I usually end up at the place at least an hour before most sane people would. Chida, who prides himself on not being like me in any respect, is on the other end of the spectrum and usually gets a kick out of sneaking in while the doors are being shut. He sniggers at my cautiousness. This time, though, he missed the flight and it cost him Rs.10,000 and his perceived upperhand against me. I've resolved to not make him forget this goof-up in a hurry.

Of all the rewards of a vacation, one of my favorites is forgetting the day of the week. I have just returned from such a time-warp, and I'm incapable of talking about my Ladakh trip as a chronologically ordered travelogue. So the next set of posts would be about all random things worth mentioning from the trek.

Tatguni

There's something transcendental about talking to SR. Yesterday she was telling me how she got a big-shot executive to dish out enough money to pay for uniforms for students in half a dozen rural schools. I asked her how she does it and she says "Men easily agree when they are asked by a beautiful single girl". Not an earth-shattering discovery for me but I marvel at the way she says it. There are no traces of hubris. She's not being coy, resigned, smug or smart-alecky. I had signed up to help her on a project that she's working tirelessly on. Apart from throwing my thoughts around I've done precious little. She summed it up "You get your kicks out of intellectual masturbation. You've got to start doing something". Once again, nothing that I didn't know before but she manages to say it without judgement. She's not being dismissive and she's not trying to provoke me. She seems to have embraced every little reality around her and that lends her an innocence that's rather amusing. And very refreshing.

I'm an atheist, and she has dedicated her life to the service of her Guru. At first sight, our personal philosophies have no common meeting ground. But whenever I meet her, I'm always left with a slightly altered world-view. This world can't be a bad place, because a person of her authenticity thrives here.

Too late to be pessimistic

A.T. gave me this incredibly simple piece of logic. Divide all the earth's resources- everything from energy, food, water, etc- and divide it by the human population. Of course, due to the enormity of the calculation, and the complexity of the parameters this is going to be conjecture. So fix your own baseline, even if it means eating 45 kilos of red meat every year and driving a hummer. Now, next year the denominator would have increased by quite a bit but the numerator wouldn't have. Stated another way, since the population has increased, your ration has reduced this year. What that means is that if you do not have a reduced footprint this year compared to the last one, you are not living it right! And yet, every definition of success in contemporary culture revolves around increasing your claims on this planet. Buy the SUV, get the dream home, fill your passport with visas, get a bigger paycheck. Once you've done all that, upgrade everything.

Pessimism is a safe place. Too often I've hid behind the excuse of the hopelessness of it all. After all, this requires not incremental changes but total upheavals of our core values. This week, I came across these two links (Paul Hawken's speech and Yann Arthus-Bertrand's TED talk), both from vastly different sources but both with the message "It's too late to be pessimistic". Let me start by acknowledging the people around me that have made the plunge into figuring out what else can replace the traditional success metrics. Pat on the back to the few others who are on the threshold. May your tribe increase. May your fire never die out.

The 6-AM-Wedding

Weddings were a lot of fun when we were kids. We have a huge extended family and these ceremonies were the best excuses for all the cousins and second cousins to meet each other. As we grew up, as an unfortunate offshoot of adulthood, each of us collected prejudices, snobbishness, judgements and biases and the set of people that we looked forward to meeting kept shrinking. Besides, as we inherited the responsibility for running a part of the show, these occasions became less about people and more about the rituals. You would have people running around in auto-pilot mode fixing details without a clue why they are doing it. One person panicking that there is not enough camphor, another distraught that the betel leaves are not folded the right way and a third giving the heavy metal band cues to play the right riffs. The rituals became so much larger than life that I've seen people in my family ostracize others due to disagreements over what ceremonies to follow.

Early today, I realized that I don't have a problem with rituals if people don't attach too much of a significance to them. Macha got married this morning. At 6:30 AM! That's when people are probably at their most benign. The rituals happened, but nobody seemed to have their tails on fire. Then there was Macha bringing his classy unperturbability to everything he does. It was a very pleasant wedding. Everybody should follow this template. Happy married life Macha!

Sunfeast 10k run - second edition

The weather was gorgeous this year. I knew the contours of the route really well. Knowing which parts slope up and which sections slope down, I had imagined, would help me pace myself better. I thought I even had practised better this time. Which is why I was a little disappointed that I ran only slightly better than last year - 53 minutes. I kept good pace till the 8th km, but the energy I had hoped would be there for the last burst didn't show up. The sense of accomplishment that I felt after the race last year was missing.

This morning, however, when I woke up, all the muscles in my lower body registered their protest in unison. You might see me grimace when I climb down the stairs today, but trust me I'm not complaining. I've never felt more alive.

When I take over the world there will be Civil Uniform Code

I am browsing for a new pair of jeans. After just a short search I find the perfect pair. Before I can complete my celebration, C stops me and tells me that they are out of fashion. I say "But hey, they are comfortable, they are not too expensive and the crotch has just the right roominess!" and he tells me "but they are so 80s". He is not the kinds who thinks about invisible consensus-building cultural forces that make you believe that bell-bottoms are cool today but inexcusable tomorrow. He will probably never provide me a scientific explanation for why one thing is more fashionable than the other but he is so smug and secure that he knows better.

In this blog I take a lot of digs at institutions, such as Religion and Patriotism, that coax you into blind conformance. Fashion can be a mean beast too. Over the years I have done a lot of thinking on the topic of why we are so judgemental about people based on what they are wearing. At one point I was convinced that black t-shirts and cargo pants are the only articles of outer clothing that I ever need. They cover enough of my skin to not hurt anybody's fragile sentiments and they are comfortable and maintenance free. And black is better than white because the dirt doesn't show. However, I know I will never be able to bring this homogeneity to my wardrobe without being socially ostracized. I set about figuring out why the world is so obsessed with what everybody else is wearing.

Fashion is a leftover instinct from the times when, as cavemen, we imitated the most successful individuals among us in the hope that we too could replicate their social and sexual accomplishments. This explains why in Victorian England women wanted to be like the fat noblewomen or fatter, and these days girls want to be like Princess Diana or thinner. I know I'm trivializing here, but that theory combined with the structured analysis of the memetics approach can explain a lot of our behavior. Economics has a huge role to play. Models, Marketers, Advertising professionals, investors, designers and entrepreneurs all have a vested interest in making the obsolescence cycles shorter and shorter so that you get tired of your clothes before you've washed them twice. Clothes of course are a way to advertize our pedigree too. I don't have feathers that I can unfurl, so I'll get myself an Armani suit. That will be the topic for another post. In this one, let me just fret about the impact.

If people didn't feel the pressure to wear different shoes for different occasions and carry different handbags with different clothes, a lot of cows, alligators and deer would be saved. We probably wouldn't have girls dying from anorexia, if we didn't overestimate the penalties of being fat. If we didn't stand exasperated in front of the wardrobe every morning and not think about how repetitive we've started to appear, a lot of time would definitely be saved. A lot of money, needless to say. A whole lot of pettiness too.

I think about how Gandhi wore the same dress whether he was meeting the queen in London or a villager in Champaran. He must have cared a rat's ass about what the other person was wearing too. That's my idea of freedom! That's where I'd like civilization to go. We've gone beyond and conquered several of our genetic predispositions and I'm sure at some point in the next million years we'll stop letting fashion dictate so much of our lives too.

Meanwhile, C is trying out a really trendy shirt. I ask him to take a picture and show it to his kid 15 yrs from now. In all likelihood she will say "What were you thinking?". She probably will start laughing too. I must be far ahead of my time, because I'm already doing that.

Pilgrim

After this weekend nobody has the right to question my secular credentials. It started off when my nephew asked me for a donation to his church. They've convinced the poor guy that there will be more peace in this world if they expand that particular building. I did send him on a little introspection about why religious folks do what they do. Since I'm against indoctrinating kids into any particular belief system, I stopped before his head got too muddled. I gave him a 100 and told him to buy ice cream. He got the hint.

For reasons that are too complicated to explain I visited a temple in Ulsoor. The only temple my family normally visits is the Shiva temple in Sadashivanagar on Shivaratri. That tradition began when I was a kid and my incentive to go there was that I got to see Dr.Rajkumar who visited the place, like clockwork, at exactly 7:30 on Shivaratri evening. Veerappan, old-age and eventually death caused him not to come anymore, but I don't have the heart to break our little family tradition.

Then we went to the Ulsoor Gurudwara. I love the sense of community that is so central to the Punjabi culture. The langar and seva are indescribably heart-warming, and their underlying principles might just be the formula that will save the human race.

I am secure in my atheism, but if there was a law that everybody had to pick a religion, mine would be Buddhism. The day wouldn't be complete without a trip to the Buddhist temple. I always knew of this unassuming buddhist place of worship near my house and yesterday was a good time to go there. Its a fascinating place. As A put it "I love places that make you shut up without anybody having to tell you to do it". The unhurriedness really lent some bizarre profoundness to the atmosphere. The rains lashed while we were inside and that made it even more surreal. If it wasn't for the noise of the traffic, this would be a great introspection sanctuary.

The mosque will have to wait till next weekend.

No more visits to the hospital please

There must be a name that psychologists give to this instinct that I'm going to describe. You know you have a fear, or hope, but you don't want to frame it in words lest you jinx it. Like saying it aloud gives it a reality that then awakens the evil prankster in Murphy or Gabriel or whoever it is that drives fate with a sense of humor. I know the feeling is irrational, so I'm going to say this loud. I don't want to visit hospitals anymore.

It all began with that well-documented completely unsavory trip to the hospital for my medical test. And now it seems I keep having reasons to go there over and over again. Last week, A had to spend a night because she had an attack of Hyperventilation Syndrome. The knowledge that I was the cause was especially onerous. Last night S-man occupied a bed at the hospital because the doctor suspected Typhoid. The dude is an ambassador of sorts for all things dionysian. To watch him lie wistfully there was very skippable. Bounce back bro.

Health to all. Amen.

Devarayandurga

S-di was the guest of honor this weekend and we decided to show her around this part of the world. Devarayanadurga was one of the chosen destinations. They say you don't discuss politics and religion with someone you just met, but that's exactly what we ended up doing on the drive. I had resisted talking about it till she unintentionally used Atheism and Anarchy in the same sentence almost implying that they were cause-and-effect. I'll come back to that in a while.

The weather was great at the top. We picked a random hill and decided to reach the top. We hadn't trekked more than a kilometer before we realized that it was a bad idea. The shrub jungle which we were drudging through was half burnt presumably in a recent wild fire. In no time, all of us looked like commandoes with black streaks all over our clothing. We chose to turn around.

Now, in these parts, every hill worth its bulge has a little temple on top and this one had a rather famous place of worship. Apparently, there was a special ceremony at 11 that day and a bunch of people had turned up from all over. It was bad news for us because our car was blocked by a dozen other cars and trucks all arranged in the kind of imaginative patterns that only divinity can explain. It was extremely frustrating to track down all the drivers in the crowd and carefully unravel the arrangement so that I could get my chariot out. It almost ruined the trip for us. The only saving grace was that we now know that not all anarchy is caused by atheism

Recession, Swine flu and other inconveniences

Both S and I are under mountains of debt and we have never been on more shaky professional ground, but yet I know, we both are looking at the recession and the swine flu and going "That might just be a good thing". The hamster was running so hard in the wheel that it was going to kill itself. Slowing the wheel down might just give the tired animal enough of chance to escape out without getting too hurt. Enough of the metaphor.

I believe that in our lifetimes materialism will become very uncool, probably even a taboo. Hoarding will too. I foresee my grandchild reading about Warren Buffett and asking "Really? Again, why did you guys celebrate him?". Changes like this work better when coerced by a benevolent dictator, but that can never happen at this stage in our civilization (and that's a good thing). Unfortunately, given our love of democracy and consensus, this change will happen when its rather late.

Lately I've surrounded myself with people who are considered freaks now, but I can see them clearly being the pioneers of a new set of socially enforced moral imperatives that will keep this planet usable for a few more generations. I've been influenced too. I've honestly stopped equating a comfortable life to a good life. I look at meat and I feel almost no temptation (I admit I still have a weakness for Koshy's beef burger). The other day my cab-mate was describing the new Honda Accord and I had zoned out. I almost felt a pity for him "The future will be hard on you, my friend". I cycle to work twice a week. I feel guilty almost every time I take my car out. My next vehicle will be on the other side of the oil economy upheaval.

And yet, I travel more than I should. In preparing for my retirement, I've contributed significantly to the real estate bubble. I still buy too many things that I don't need. I wrote this post on a piece of paper sitting at a coffee shop that sells at a ridiculous premium. When I pause my writing, I look at my Sheaffer admiringly. I have a long way to go.

Phish

While a good piece of music is growing on me, the events happening in my life at that time somehow get knitted with the notes. The association becomes so strong that years later the song summons, albeit in a subdued way, the same emotional experiences. "Coming back to Life" takes me to Pup's gravel-strewn parapet-less terrace and revives the idealism of four clueless souls. "When the Levee Breaks" invokes the drive to Pondicherry. "Where is My Mind?" reminds me of letting a best-friend go. "Why Georgia" is about Sequioa.

This last week I've been falling in love with Phish. The list of songs I like is really long but I'd have to pick "Taste", "Chalk Dust Torture" and "Prince Caspian". They're already one of my favorite bands. I'll seek out every album of theirs and wear them out. However, they will always be associated with an interminable bus journey and with letting people (and a cat) go. I know that their songs will make me intensely poignant, but never truly happy. That's the only shame.

Capt. Gopinath

I find door-to-door campaigning irritating. I hate the whole scam; the fake modesty, the circle of cronies, the paper handouts, those jingoistic promises, the khadi, and not least the look on the candidate that says "Look at me! I'm gracious enough to leave my crown at home". What irritates me most is that the candidates I have to choose from don't come close to representing me on any one of the issues that I care about.

Last evening, however, Capt. Gopinath dropped into our office like a waft of fresh air. He addressed us for an hour and narrated his progression from a serviceman to farmer to businessman and now to a politician. He had some fascinating stories to tell us. He gave us a fleeting glimpse of his beliefs too. I disagreed with him often. When he referred to India as a nation of "one billion consumers", I cringed and realized how far left I've ended up in my ideology. I cringed again when he referred to how we was inspired by China's model of development. In his defense, he quickly clarified that he does not condone the curbs on liberties. But mostly I agreed with him. That's not the point though. The encouraging bit was that throughout the hour he spoke my language.

It's a pity that he is not in my constituency. My instincts tell me he's going to lose in Bangalore South. That might still be the start of something.

Gokarna

Have you heard people look at a breathtaking landscape and say "The Government should develop tourism here"? (You'll have a better chance of hearing that if you take a fresh NRI to that place). That's the kind of philosophy that takes a beautiful, bio-diverse, rich vista and converts it into a mall! If you don't know what I mean, you've never been to Manali or Goa. Some of my favorite places in my home state are those that are really difficult to get to and ones that you'll never hear of in a tour guide. For all those who say that beauty should be shared, I say "buzz off!". Maybe, developing tourism fuels the economy, but it also excuses raping a land without paying the ecological costs.

Let me get to the point now. I like Gokarna. I like it that there were so few people there. I like it that we virtually owned the beach. I like it that it's not as tourist-friendly as Goa. Or was it just the 'wrong' time of the year? Whatever the reason was, it was one hell of a weekend.

Bellary Trip

It's too soon for me to talk about Prof. Trilochan Shastry without appearing star-struck. Prof is behind the Association for Democratic Reforms and National Election Watch. I had the privilege to travel with him to Bellary on one of his campaigns to snap people out of their cynicism. This trip had been born out of a request to the prof to do something about the craziness in Bellary. For the uninitiated, Bellary has recently become the epicenter of politics in Karnataka. The money from the mines, it is universally known, routinely makes a marketplace out of the votes.

Before we landed there, prof had managed to reach out to NGOs working in the district, irrespective of whether they worked on Electoral reforms or not. When we got there, there was a healthy gathering that had congregated in the Gandhi Bhavan. What followed next was a master class in how to influence people. While the meeting had begun in an atmosphere of dispassion, by the end of the session, there was an ad-hoc committee formed that couldn't wait to get on the ground to spread awareness about the dangers of selling votes.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the sterilized cocoons of various civil servants; election observers, the superintendent of police et al. There came my lesson 2. Irrespective of whether the audience was patronizing, indifferent, non-committal or even uninterested; nothing but nothing seemed to bother prof S. It was fascinating to see such unblemished single mindedness. All that despite the knowledge that the results his labour won't show for another decade or so.

I must have learnt something every minute of this trip. I remembered what Santayana said about escaping "into the moral holiday of running some pure hazard, in order to sharpen the edge of life, to taste hardship, and to be compelled to work desperately for a moment at no matter what.". I realized that travel is about knowing my world a little better and in the process knowing a bit more about myself.

My tales of Bellary won't make people jealous. Bellary was never on any of my 'Things to do before I ...' lists. Bellary does not boast the manicured landscapes or the sanitized locales that we love to photograph against. Bellary won't figure in any formula-traveler's almanac. It's no surprise, though, that my trip to Bellary last Sunday is probably my favorite ever

Cholesterol

Of all the things that could have gone wrong in my annual health report, my lipid profile was the last suspect. On a scale of 1-10, 1 being "coat-hanger" and 10 a "binge-eating walrus", my build has been consistently categorized as 1.7 "Scarecrow". Yet when I visited my doctor to collect my report he gave me that ugly look. Like my arteries are crude oil pipelines. Like there's probably enough fat in there to make two bars of soap. He assumed a haughty look and said "Without even asking you, I can tell you that you don't do any exercise". That's not the first time I've been picked on by a doctor, but coming as it did on a week in which I had played Basketball, Badminton, and football, had cycled to office twice and done a bit of rock-climbing, I had no option but to politely ask him to take back his words and put it in another place. He clarified that he has nothing personal against me but 240 is tad too high. I have no idea what that number meant at that time, but I was pretty disillusioned.

Life has changed significantly. I am avoiding beer. I close my eyes and turn the rosary beads vigorously when I smell menasinakaayi bajji. But not everything has been bad. I have an excuse not to eat out. My knowledge of wines has expanded and French fries tempt me no more. The best outcome, though, has been that I feel really guilty when I haven't exercised at all in a day. It's an awesome pressure to have.

Trip to Saragur

This is from our day trip to Saragur. It had everything. People that have stepped off the regular treadmills. Landscapes that are untouched by any pretensions. The satisfaction of learning things that no book or picture can ever teach. The slowing of time. Ferment. Joy.
The full report here. Mine to follow.

My favorite lines from Slaughterhouse-Five

"Even though Billy's train wasn't moving, its boxcars were kept locked tight. Nobody was to get off until the final destination. To the guards who walked up and down outside, each car became a single organism which ate and drank and excreted through its ventilators. It talked or sometimes yelled through its ventilators, too. In went water and loaves of black-bread and sausage and cheese, and out came shit and piss and language."


"Like so many Americans she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops"

- Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five

Our culture needs help again

Are you familiar with those situations when you have to explain your point of view to someone, but then you realize they are so far adrift that there's really no point? Take the Mangalore pub case, for instance. There was one representative from the Ram Sene group on television and he was asking HDK-style rhetorical questions "How can we let girls go to pubs?". Another lady on the panel tried to point out that the Rigveda dedicates reams to explain the merits of Somarasa and does not once mention that it is only for the men, but that didn't make a dent on the guy. He continued to believe that asking questions makes up for not explaining your point of view "Will the parents approve of this?"

I felt the frustration again while people discussed "Slumdog Millionaire". There was one guy on TV who felt that this is a movie that shows only the negative side of India. He made his point with a question "Why haven't they shown any white paedophiles in the movie?". I was exasperated to see the anchors patronize him. Nobody had the common sense to ask "If you want to show that there are white paedophiles why don't YOU make a movie about white paedophiles?" Another guy said that Boyle is exploiting poverty and getting rich in the process. I just sighed because I don't know where to begin to counter that.

Slumdog, by the way, is not a bad movie. The opening sequence left a huge impression. A bunch of kids, playing cricket on an airport runway, are chased by policemen through the slums. On that little tour of the slum you get all those familiar feelings of pity and distress and helplessness. And then suddenly you realize that all the negativity is in your head. The kids are having a whale of a time. That cognitive dissonance put me in a daze and I was barely present for the rest of the movie. Still, go

Nuff vibes

Long ago, I was staying at a hostel in Austria. I was pretty surprised that girls and boys, perfect strangers to each other, were sharing dorms. There were two Hungarian girls and an Algerian guy staying in my dorm. We had all become very friendly by the end of the first day. By the time we downed our nightcaps and returned, it was like we had know each other for a very long time. I knew that I'd go back and tell folks about how well I had hit it off with the first foreigners that had crossed my path. Especially the girls! I was still young enough to care about trophies like that. I slept like a rock that night and woke up feeling extremely refreshed. Continuing at the level of cordiality that I thought we had established in the room, I wished everyone a very good morning. I was greeted with grunts. The girls looked puffy-eyed and I asked why. The Algerian said "You snored all night like a pig".

That's when I realized that what I had thought was an urban legend propagated by a suspiciously large number of people in my family, may actually be true. I was a snorer! On a later trip, a separate set of strangers told me that I sound like a two-stroke engine. Yesterday, I stayed over at a friend's place and when I woke up one of the witnesses said I groan like a dinosaur in labour. I was still in denial. Let me now tell you why mobile phones are such pesky little contraptions, these folks had recorded my snores on two separate cell phones. It's not fun to confront evidence like that. Apart from the technical problem that dinosaurs were reptiles which laid eggs (I'm guessing without much groaning), I have to concede that the analogy is fairly accurate.

It's not decaying yet

If you've read my posts for a while you'll realize that my cup is usually half-empty. I have a rather resigned view of this world and its prospects. In fact, one of the reasons that I'm an atheist is that I believe any half-decent god would have a done a better job. (And I don't buy the argument that the maker works in mysterious ways. It's the lamest excuse for incompetence). To cut a long story short I'm a cynic. But there are some days when even I'm forced to think again.

I have a rather uncomfortable chair at work. And I'm mindful about picking up those back conditions that seems to ail so many of my brethren. So I keep changing the settings of my chair in an effort to spread my risks. Yesterday, I even tried sitting on the floor for a bit. While I was doing that one of the guys from the housekeeping gang enquired if he could help. I thanked him politely. I assumed that he was just making small talk. This morning the dude had left a beanbag in my place.

I guess I'll keep the hope for a little bit longer.

Another brick in the wall...

I was watching the video of an all-hands meeting in the US office of our company, and noticed that at the end of the talk people are usually falling over each other to ask questions. I couldn't help contrast that with our own gatherings of that sort. My current work -place is not so bad, but everywhere else I've worked, people wouldn't speak up if their moms were held at ransom. I wonder why we like to fly so low. Why is there such a social pressure against making yourself heard in public? Surely it must be cultural. The education system must be at fault too. (I know I'm over-concluding a bit here, but what the hell, It's my blog) You don't ever hear teachers encouraging the kids to have critical reasoning and independence. This little kid's project offered a glimpse of the coercive persuasion that he must have surely gone through. This guy really believes that "Talking less in class" is the hallmark of a good student. Meanwhile I'm sure the teacher got through her workday with the fewest challenges.

Ignite

This evening I'm presenting at Ignite. In keeping with my fetish for being a doomsday prophet, my talk is titled "How the world will end, and why we won't do anything about it". The format is quite interesting. You get 5 minutes to talk about anything that you are passionate about. The template for the presentation is to use 20 slides with auto-transition set for 15 secs per slide. I'm speaking on a topic that was inspired by "Collapse" by Jared Diamond. I have modified the slides that I used in the soapbox talk.

While rehearsing this presentation- and you just cannot do a talk like this without rehearsing at least half a dozen times- I realized how ridiculously short 5 minutes are. There is a big risk that for anybody not concerned already about ecology, the content of my talk might come across as an overly simplified case. Then again, in my defence, there's not much impact anybody can do on any topic in 5 mins. Unless you are unfairly gifted like this guy!

Links I'm excited about

Bwana's rockband just got a new website http://www.derocketiers.net/

My partner-in-arms for my world-domination ambitions, S, got a new domain name registered.
Winston Churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. Even a really popular president, Obama was approved only by 52% of the crowd. That raises the question; have we really exhausted all our options? I can think of one system that we've not tried so far. How about handing over the reins of the world to two arbitrary, albeit capable and willing, guys?

The world needs a lot of help. We first thought of turning to God, but one of us is an atheist, and the other thinks the almighty exists but couldn't care less. We explored several other options before we took it upon ourselves to clean up the mess. We have it all mostly worked out. We have a power-sharing scheme where S will be the supreme commander of the world with special focus on Eurasia, while I take care of (soon-to-be-rechristened) Gondwanaland and also serve as chief advisor. He gets to be the boss, because of his significant height- S is tall enough that his foot and head are usually in very different weather systems- settled the issue in his favor. For all the other details that we haven't yet figured out, read this blog.

Chikmagalur trip

I've been on these treks at least once every year of my life and I'm still interested. That can't be a good sign!

Photos here

Deppe recommends - 7

It's not often that I can claim to have read any book that significantly altered my outlook on life. I managed to read two in a row!

Book 1: Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis

A couple of quotes from the book.

"You, too, have turned into a typical lousy Greek, a tavern-loafer, a wallower in café-life, because you need not think only cafés are cafés; books are, too, and habits, and your precious ideologies. They are all cafés"

"the highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!"

Book 2: Collapse by Jared Diamond.

I loved the "cautious optimism" that Diamond advocates. I've almost stopped being a doomsday prophet.

Here's a blog recommendation. I'll be watching (and working on) this VERY closely.

Spottings from the Muthathi trip

Rufous Tree Pie

Jackal (don't know what kind)

Black-winged kite

Nice!!

Mystery Spot

Mystery Spot is an area in California where the rules of gravity don't hold good. Or so they claim. Knowing that a lot of us are stupid they offer this explanation

"Some speculate that cones of metal were secretly brought here and buried in our earth as guidance systems for their spacecraft. Some think that it is in fact the spacecraft itself burried deep within the ground. Other theories include carbon dioxide permeating from the earth, a hole in the ozone layer, a magma vortex, the highest dielectric biocosmic radiation known anywhere in the world, and radiesthesia. Whatever the cause is, it remains a mystery."

You'd be surprised at how many people actually believe that rubbish! The only mystery there is "What the hell was the architect smoking?". Farce or not, the place is good fun and it does give you a few insights on how your brain works. Here's VA climbing a wall...


...and AJ dodging a bullet.

Deppe Recommends - 6

Movie: Religulous
I'm a fan of Bill Maher and I think he, as he proves it here, can be insightful while being funny and caustic at the same time. That's why I had high expectations from Religulous. I did have a lot of fun watching it and I believe every man, woman and child should go watch it.

There are all kinds of nut jobs in the movie but my favourite was a researcher from Israel who specializes in working around the sabbath laws. For instance, you are not supposed to dial numbers on a telephone during the sabbath (the old testament is more comprehensive than I thought). So this guy has invented a telephone where all the keys are pressed by default, and you un-dial the numbers that you don't need. Apparently god approves the design, because armageddon hasn't struck! Then there's a "scientist" who runs a Young earth museum. The main attraction there is a scene depicting rubber humans running around with rubber dinosaurs.

While I laughed all along, I was disappointed that the film didn't aspire to anything greater than just making fun of religion. Despite its strong material I doubt if it will change attitudes. People who are in denial will continue to be in denial. How often have you heard people say " is a religion of peace!". Hyper-sensitive folks will continue to be outraged at the silliest things (How insecure must you be to let Harbhajan Singh hurt your sentiments! I mean HARBHAJAN SINGH!!! ). Religion will continue to be given unnecessary privileges in society and politics, so that you can win at least a few constituencies with the promise of a ram temple or bridge!

My only other complaint is that Maher completely ignores my religion. Come'on bill, aren't we ridiculous enough to make the cut?

Book: Zorba, the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis

Pseudo-french

I've already hollered about this before, but I'm having to rant again about pseudo-french because it is making my life hard. These two are so wide-spread that I am tempted to mispronounce them just to fit in!
1. Warren Buffett's last name is not pronounced like the self-served meal. "Booffay!" sounds like he is a comic-book villain who aims to amass vulgar amounts of money and dominate the world. Hey wait a minute!!
2. Roulette, for some reason is being called "roolay" by a lot of people around me. In Las Vegas, I got condescending looks from my betting partners when I pronounced it the way it should. I assure you, that is why I lost all that money.

And then there is pseudo-greek. Why do the Americans pronounce processes like it rhymes with hypotheses?

While I'm cribbing about it, I must also mention that when the republicans talk about the "Nucular" weapons in "eye-rack" it feels like a fork on porcelain

Vegas

Random notes from my Vegas trip
* Gambling is addictive. I was up $65 by the end of Saturday. I thought I had figured out the roulette. I couldn't wait to double my money on Sunday. By the end of the trip my net loss was $105. It's all orchestrated. The dogs make you win on Saturday so that you get reckless on Sunday.
* What's a few hundred dollars? I put something else at stake on Sunday evening, my life! The rides (XScream, Insanity and BigShot) on Stratosphere are the meanest I've ever been on!
* The casinos are impressive in their scale but there's something stupid about watching a replica Eiffel tower with the Louvre (I think) in between its legs!
* Driving 20 hours in a weekend is hard. In the one hour that I decided to take a break and hand the wheels over to my co-passengers, we got pulled over for weaving too much on the highway, almost rear-ended another car on a freeway exit, burnt so much rubber while braking that we could smell it for the rest of the journey. I even once opened my eyes and found that we were cruising along on the wrong side. I took back control and drove the rest of the way. Concentrating for 20 hours is tiring as hell. I think I built a lot of character. Now, how often can you say that about a Vegas trip?
* What(ever else) happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. So that's the end of that.