its that simple!

I have very simple advice to all the ministers and prime ministers and presidents battling it out, trying to do good for their nation (and for the world) and having to battle with those situations where doing good for a nation necessitates something bad for some other nation.

When in doubt, go ask a sweet minded child. Admittedly, there are kids who have genetic predisposition to be devious. Ministers of the world, please do not go to one of these kids. Go to a park. Look out for a bunch of kids playing "ring-a-ring-a-roses". Identify a kid that helps another kid stand up when "they all fall down". Or look for a child who shares cotton candy. That is the sweet minded child I am referring to. Go ask him/her what you should do. And then blindly follow it. Blindly. Don't ask questions. Submit to the pure innocence of the child and do what you're told to do. For heaven's sake, let's not argue.

I had a very interesting conversation with an undergrad the other day.
x : You're not voting ?
I (coz it rhymes with y): no
x : why not ?
I : I ain't a US a citizen.
x : so, get a greencard
I: a) getting a greencard is different from citizenship, and I haven't been here long enough to become a citizen anyway.
x: but ur here for the next 6 years right ?
I: I guess
x: So the president's decision will affect ur life during the next 6 years right ?
I: I suppose so
x: Then you should vote. Go vote.

Its interesting that he looked at it that way. If ur staying here, and we've let u stay here, then u should have a say in what is happening.

Of course, they're not going to let me vote. Presumably because I may decide to go back home in less than 4 years. Presumably because the president makes decisions more long term than 4 years. Presumably, because I havent been in this country long enough to know what is good for the country and what is not. And if I haven't said it yet, I do not want to vote. This isn't a blog pleading for voting privileges or any such thing.

Its just to show that sometimes there are simple minded solutions that we refuse to think about precisely coz they seem too simple a solution to the problem. But who wants complex statistics when innocent thoughts can get the job done.

Who wants to spend a billlion dollars on a huge nuclear weapon which is our only hope to making sure that another country wont detonate its nuclear baby.

Why all this, when we can live happily by passing around cotton candy and helping others stand up. Ministers, while you're on ur way to making sure cotton candy gets passed, can you initiate a motion to put all chocolate making factories on that list that makes it illegal for countries to bomb it. Like those world heritage sites that one cannot drop a bomb on. I've always found that list very funny. Who even thinks of making a list that says "oh should you go to war with my country, u can drop bombs there but not here". What is that ? A piece meal approach to making sure no place gets bombed ?

All of you, who are reading this and are thinking in your mind "not everything in the world is thar simple", shut up already!

Its that simple.

these are a few of my ominous things....

• When someone begins a sentence with "there is a choice you can make here".

It means "someone" knows you've already made a decision.
They don't approve of it.
They also know that their approval is somewhat important to you, at least as a vote of confidence, and by offering you a choice, they're trying to change your decision.
However disheartening it is going to be to change your decision, its going to be much worse when you cannot hold "someone" responsible.
Because... it was a choice that YOU made. They didn't make it for you. And oh yeah, they would've been happy for you either way.

• You get up deciding to have a snack at favourite restaurant x on your way back from classes on the way to work.

This is the one day they'll let class off earlier than usual. You were so sure of having that snack that you didn't carry the boring granola bars with you. You have a "choice to make here". You can either hang around in the streets till restaurant x opens, eat somewhere else, go to the library, hang around there geekily and then head back to restaurant x (even more geekily), or head to lab. Funny thing... by the time you walk to the lab, it'll be time for restaurant x to open. But why would you head back to restaurant x when you're in the lab and you can start work earlier and hence get out of work earlier ? You can time it so you walk exactly half the distance b/w lab and restaurant x, so when you get to mid point, you can walk back to restaurant x and reach there exactly in time for it to open. But when you reach mid point, you;ll think (oh ****, i can come go to lab and finish work sooner than usual). The argument continues.
In effect you neither get ur snack or savour the pleasures of being let off class earlier than usual.
At this point, I usually go to a store and get myself a granola bar, nibble at the granola bar and ruminate on the humour of it all.

• You slept early so you can get up in time.

This is a crazy thing. Sleeping early has nothing to do with getting up in time. Getting up in time is the most independent variable I've ever seen. It has nothing to do with anything but itself. It probably talks to itself all night and chooses to do exactly what it pleases. And getting up in time according to it, is getting up at exactly the time it wants to wake you up, not what you wanted it to do.

And you think maybe if

• You slept late, you can get up in time.

Sort of catch "mr get up in time" at his own game. But ya, like that'll ever happen. Coz you're so tired, you can't get up in time anyway. And in any case its back to mr get up in time doing what he does best. Make sure you don't get up in time.

• You spot a guy who looks ok, can talk well but not so much that your head is filled with white noise, who listens, who seems to know why he is the way he is, lets others around him be whoever they want to be, and generally seems to have a higher level of maturity and you think maybe...

Ha Ha Ha... He's either married or is in a steady relationship (guess who has been a big influence on his maturity and his sense of direction and his "letting others be". Oh and his listening!



Well, if the above are the only sucky things happening now, I must say that life can get so much worse (and this list can get much, much longer).

And so...

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I'm feeling bad

I simply remember these ominous things
And then I do feel pretty glad!

world news

ya apparently all these things are happening in the world and i am very oblivious to it.
its one thing to be aware and not be affected.
which breeds too much tolerance, in turn giving all the "bad ppl" permission to do anything, coz ur going to get used to everything.
i suppose death is something we still arent used to even though its been happening for as long as anything's been alive.
i've always found that bit very strange.
we were never asked if we wanted to be born, kinda had no choice there. and somehow we're all ok with it.
yet we want to know how to prevent death and would actually very much liked to be asked (by chance and fate and acts of god as well) if we wanted to die. somehow we just dont think abt the singularity at the other end. or do we ?
i never have.
back to the point;
so its one thing to be aware but not affected.
its another thing to be unaware.

that's where i am.
i am clueless.
i dunno what's happening to the world around me.
that knowledge is a click away.
websites are waiting to tell me.
but i've been unaware for so long that i dunno where to start.
i must make reading the news a habit.
its a very sad thing to not know stuff (regardless of whether it'll affect u or not).

so
ya
when i finish studying stuff abt helicases and primases
(apparently i don't need to learn nucleotide structures for the exam. all thru undergrad i complained that there was no point learning them; but i'd learn them anyway, and now i'm being asked not to learn them for the exam and i don;t know how to prepare for an exam without learning these structures)
its a funny turn of events.

anyway... when i am done with all this (in the next hour or so i believe), i'm gonna do some newsreading.
along with my evening cup of masala chai
READYMADE

ciao

meter mele hatthu roopayi

Before I embark on my anecdotes about my encounters with the autowallahs, I must say Bangalore's autodrivers are the best mannered in the country. I refuse to listen to any statement to the contrary. However, I must also say that most of my anecdotes are going to sound like I don't like them at all. When in doubt refer to the opening lines above. They are the best mannered of them all.

Right anyway...

Here we go..


BAW (Bangalore autowallah)s will take you from place A to place B if and only if they are assured of a client at place B. They will then of course insist that mr client at place B take them to a place C if and only if they are assured of a client at place C... and so they go on ad infinatum. They however are very understanding of the layman's lack of astrological skills and are willing to take said layman to any place as long as there's a reasonable chance that BAW will get a "sawaari". But there's a catch.

Let me explain
Every morning dozens of Bangaloreans go towards the city with a view to working, earning a living etc etc. The traffic flow is towards the city in the morning; not away from it. This is an extremely important concept to the BAWs.
Therefore let's say BAW takes you to the city and is expecting a client in the middle of the city- he's not going to get one. Why ? Because everyone who is in the city is where they want to be. No one wants to come out of it. Poor BAW is left hanging around in the middle of the city waiting for the rare lunatic who wants to come out; maybe rare lunatic got fired, perhaps he quit, maybe he left his pain medication at home and needs them really badly. If BAW waits long enough he will find someone. But poor BAW thinks "damn, if only I were outside the city, there would be so many sawaaris coming towards the city". And to avoid all this confusion he'll tell you in the morning, when you ask him to take you to the city, that he won't get anyone back from there. He'll tell you to that he'll be willing to take you to another residential locality (where presumably another bunch of people will be waiting to get to the city, and he'll find some goon there who'll take him to yet another residential locality).

Exactly the reverse happens in the evening. Everyone is coming back from the city. No one wants to go back into the concrete jungle. BAW is back in action insisting that you only take him to places where ppl want to come back from the city; which you will gladly do if only he will take you outside the city in the first place. No can do says our BAW.

He's a master of putting u in catch 22.

That being said, the best times to catch autos are mid morning and mid evening- where there's a nice equilibrium between traffic towards the city and away from the city... traffic traffic everywhere, autos going everywhere, but you forever in jam, so essentially you going nowhere.

But... the way to get around this refusal is to agree to pay him 10 bucks above the meter "meter mele hatthu roopayi kodi". In sheer desperation most people agree. And that's how people get to the city every morning. And that's how people get back from the city in the evening. In case you are saying to yourself " umm, this can't be true, coz i've seen autos in the city in the morning, and i've seen autos outside the city in the evening".

My question to you is have you seen how battered and tattered 10 rs notes are ? More than any other kind of note ? It is all due to the meter mele hatthu roopayi conspiracy. Fortunately, this particular request never suffers from inflation. Despite increasing fuel prices and lpg and increasing income and fancier flyovers, and people standing in front of fab india with 3 bags full of ridiculously expensive cotton clothes telling the BAW that she will not give 1 paisa above meter, it will always be hatthu roopayi. Coz BAW is forever considerate.

One fellow once asked me when I was haggling with him at the top of my voice.. "madam, its 10 rs, do you need it more or do i need it more". I wanted to tell him "it's the principle of the thing". But sometimes, its also a question of who needs it more. I needed the ride more than he did. He needed 10 rs more than I do. It's a good deal at the end of the day.

There was another time when I agreed to pay the extra 10 rs, but kept on a tirade of how ridiculous the whole thing is, including asking him to give me a time table of *where and all* he'll be willing to take me at different times of the day, so that I can plan my day accordingly, and how could he expect to always want people to be willing to jump in his auto and go where he wants to go, whereas actually he is expected to take his clients where they want to go, and how they have this one excuse called "sawaari sigalla" to ruin all your travel plans and how you cannot be expected to know every single sawaari's whim or bend to their whim even if you did know it ya-dah ya-dah ya-dah

So yes... I went on and on in a pretty bad broken kannada with high funda words like "nyaaya" and "neethi" and "jawaabdaari". And when finally we arrived at my destination he waived off the 10 rs saying "beda madam. Thumba majaa banthu nimhathra maathaadi".

Into every life a little rain must pour :)