Back in the day, we used to have a blog on Livemint, now deceased. Recently, vox populi (and a dolphin) have been asking for certain posts, now long forgotten and dead. We are reproducing.
The Saga of the Side Middle Berth
Which was provoked by disturbing goings-on on the Charminar Express last night [Note: This is circa July 2009.]
Long, long ago in a land far, far away, there lived a dairy farmer. He and his friends were mesmerized by the magic of trains. Often, on hot summer days, they would gather near the doors of the air-conditioned compartments, hoping to catch a refreshing gust of cool air as the doors swung open and shut. When the coach attendant caught them, he would shoo them away. The farmer never forgot how cool and good the AC felt, and nor did he forget the treatment that was meted out to his friends.
Many decades later, Lalu Prasad Yadav became India's railways minister. Much Gangajal (and other unmentionables) had flowed under the impressive bridge at Patna, but the minister had not forgotten his encounters with the AC sleeper coaches all those years back. While he set about busily turning Indian Railways around from its slide into bankruptcy, Laluji made plans to make his dream of AC travel for the common man come true.
Or so goes one theory behind the fully air-conditioned Garib Rath superfasts that were introduced in 2005. Another theory holds that they were conceived to steal back the section of upper class rail passengers who had succumbed to the voluptuous overtures of the low cost airline boom. Like all legends, the truth is probably a heady cocktail of all of the above.
Be that as it may, the fact remains that the seed of an idea for creating the Garib Raths for providing fully air-conditioned, cheap travel options to Indians who had hitherto been unable to afford this luxury, germinated in some cosy corner of the labyrinthine megalith that is Rail Bhavan.
The powers that be were acutely conscious that they would be accused of populism and pandering to the 'masses' if they came up with a cheap, loss making train that would have to be subsidized by receipts from other railway operations. Right from the beginning, the idea was to make sure that the trains would be profitable (like the Rajdhanis). So how do you take a Rajdhani Express, reduce the ticket price substantially, and yet keep the operation profitable? Simple! You have to carry more people.
Trantrantrantraaaaa...(and other fanfare). Enter the Dragon [At this juncture, connoisseurs of that Telugu classic 'Money' are invited to chuckle]. This scorcher went by the name of Side Middle Berth (SMB. Or, in the interest of industrial quantities of cuteness, Simbu). Simbu suddenly meant that you could carry 9 more people in the same coach. Simbu was cool, Simbu was innovative, Simbu was the new kid on the block. It is rumored that the designers all dislocated their arms from paroxyms of a patting-oneself-on-the-back epidemic that briefly swept through their brotherhood and sisterhood.
At some point, someone must've gone, "Machaan! (Or Aila! Teri To! Edo! Orai! Dude! as the case may be) What is good for Garib Rath must surely be better for Sleeper Class!! Why don't we bung Simbus into SL coaches, and suddenly we can carry 81 people instead of 72!" Kaching kaching kaching! The cash register sound was like a siren song. Lo, and presto. Suddenly a whole new class of coaches started showing up, all souped up and Simbued.
The problems began from Day 0. The IRCTC website, which had been commissioned by Chanakya and inaugurated approximately in the period of Pulakesin II (and is now officially a UNESCO World Heritage Site), still assumed that you could only seat 72 people, and allotted seat numbers accordingly. Many an uncle (including this one), showed up in the compartment to find out that the comfy lower berth number 33 that they'd booked in the interest of their arthritic knee had mysteriously wafted upwards and was kissing the ceiling now. It became mandatory to take a look at the reservation chart to find what your new seat number (with promised lower berth) was. This was OK if you were in Howrah or Chennai Central and had all the time in the world, but if you were in Ankamali For Kaladi (I kid you not, this is a real station), you only had 13 milliseconds to do this.
Others (i.e. I) resorted to deriving complicated formulae to remember the new berth number. Issued in the general public interest under a Copyleft license
1. Take old berth number (example 33).
2. Divide by 9 (=33/9 = 3.remainder)
3. Remainders are for WUSSES. Chuck the remainder.
4. Add quotient to original berth number (33 + 3 = 36)
5. Give Praise Unto The Mundoli
Quarrels erupted ("This is my berth!" "No, this is my berth!" "No, this is my birth!" "Hain ji?")
And this was only the start. Once you got the poor Simbu occupant on the train, you had to seat him somewhere. In the bygone era of equality and uniformity, it was 3 people to each long seat, facing each other fixedly for several hours. Now Simbu was inserted into one of the long seats. Disruptions in the space-time continuum!
Inequality looms. The 3-seat fellows all suddenly acquired smug grins (Ha, ha! Look at those 4 unfortunates trying to fit on that slab, lucky us!). The 4-seat wallahs were apoplectic at the insertion of Simbu. They stare him down, and start moving their hands across their throats in a highly knife-like and suggestive manner. Poor Simbu became an uncomfortable outcast, trying to minimize his width (to fit in the seat), his height (to fit in the berth) and in general behaving like a touch-me-not.
So far, so good. Everyone has found their place, and made their peace. The train is careening into the night. Bedtime arrives. Now, the fellow who would normally be in the Side Upper Berth (SUB, obviously a.k.a Subbu), clambers onto the berth with the alacrity of a space monkey. The horror, the horror. Subbu finds that in order to accommodate Simbu, they've moved his berth closer to the ceiling. He can't sit up, and needs to constantly watch out lest he is decapitated by a very suspect, tetanus inducing fan that is hanging in front of his face. So now Subbu also hates Simbu, and makes dark plans for what devilry (involving fluids) he might do unto the sleeping form of the hapless Simbu, from his veritable Golan Heights of strategic advantage.
Simbu doesn't make a fuss, and quietly occupies his shelf in the rack. The lights are switched out, various expectoratory and other noises are heard. Soon, that comfortable and familiar silence of the Sleeper Class coach descends, punctuated by only the clickety-clack of metal wheels on metal points. Before the bastard in 41 starts snoring at 50 million decibels, as he inevitably will, you know it. (Sometimes I am that bastard, so please don't cuss too much).
It is 2 a.m. The rocking of the train has lulled the panic-stricken Simbu into a lap-of-mother type sleep. The rocking of the train has also resulted in Simbu starting an oscillatory rolling in his berth. Now in their infinite wisdom, those coach designers (of dislocated arms fame) did not move the light switches that we find between the 2 side seats (i.e. between Subbu's seat and Silambarasan's (i.e. Side Lower Berth) seat). Crucially, this switch is now athwartships of Simbu's gently oscillating backside.
In the old days, they had those massive metallic or Bakelite switches where you needed a team of horses (to pull the switch) and a Reynolds pen (to poke and jiggle the light/fan) before they would get going. As part of the Simbu innovations, they've replaced those switches with more 21st century avatars, which actually respond to feather touch. Alas, they didn't account for Simbu's gently rock-n'-rolling backside. At 2:30 in the morning, under the influence of the oscillatory impact, the fluorescent light starts to go on-off-on-off.
Now I'm not one to complain about a light flashing a couple of times. But absolutely, positively the last thing in the world I want is a Simbu-induced, fluorescent strobe light equipped, moving-at-100-kmph discotheque in front of my face at 2:30 in the morning, somewhere between Bapatla and Chirala. That is, without other expected accessories such as alcohol, recreational drugs, music, and pulsating, gyrating, nubile bodies all around.
But this is a delicate situation. One way to "handle" it is to...umm...reach out with one's hands and reposition the...err...oscillating rear end, but even in these heady post Section 377 days of freedom, some of us balk at this sort of thing. The other is to reach down from the upper berth and poke Simbu in the eye with one's big toe and wake him up (but not before toe is retracted) and thereby stopping the on-off. The third is to fill one's heart to the brim with the hatred of the Side Middle Berth, grit one's teeth and grin and bear it. Guess what we did.
To cut a long story long, the Side Middle Berth is a PHENOMENALLY bad idea. We have listed at least 4 reasons. Bad for Simbu, bad for Subbu, and for everyone who loves and cherishes Indian Railways. The good news is that there is talk that this sentiment has reached the highest echelons of Rail Mantralaya, and that steps are now being taken to possibly get rid of this obscenity. The bad news is that Simbu, who got this berth because of Tatkal in the first place, is now running around like a headless chicken on Platform 1 at Secunderabad, because he doesn't have a seat any more. If you see him, give him a hug.
PS It is noted that we've been highly gender un-neutral in this post and it's all "him" and "his" and all that, but may it be known by these presents that Simbu, Subbu and Silambarasan might equally have been Simbdoori, Subbulakshmi and Silombavardhini, without loss of generality.
The reader will be pleased to note that the SMB in SL coach phenomenon is now officially a thing of the past. We like to believe that this happy turn of events came about because of this post.
Showing posts with label whimsy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label whimsy. Show all posts
Monday, February 13, 2012
Friday, November 04, 2011
A 50-50 Sort Of Feeling
This passage somehow manages to mentally split me neatly into 50-50, the one half filled with Vizag, and the other with New England.
From here.
I've been to Union Station in Chicago. And to the other great stations of the East - South Station, Penn Station, Grand Central, Madras Central. On snowy and rainy evenings. It is as he says.
One of my most vivid memories is of coming back West from prep school and later from college at Christmas time. Those who went farther than Chicago would gather in the old dim Union Station at six o’clock of a December evening, with a few Chicago friends, already caught up into their own holiday gayeties, to bid them a hasty good-by. I remember the fur coats of the girls returning from Miss This-or-that’s and the chatter of frozen breath and the hands waving overhead as we caught sight of old acquaintances, and the matchings of invitations: “Are you going to the Ordways’? the Herseys’? the Schultzes’?” and the long green tickets clasped tight in our gloved hands. And last the murky yellow cars of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad looking cheerful as Christmas itself on the tracks beside the gate.Maybe it's the mix of snow, trains, and going home.
When we pulled out into the winter night and the real snow, our snow, began to stretch out beside us and twinkle against the windows, and the dim lights of small Wisconsin stations moved by, a sharp wild brace came suddenly into the air. We drew in deep breaths of it as we walked back from dinner through the cold vestibules, unutterably aware of our identity with this country for one strange hour, before we melted indistinguishably into it again.
That’s my Middle West — not the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns, but the thrilling returning trains of my youth, and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow.
From here.
I've been to Union Station in Chicago. And to the other great stations of the East - South Station, Penn Station, Grand Central, Madras Central. On snowy and rainy evenings. It is as he says.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Revolutionary Breakthrough In 2D Planar Geometry
Wonder if any of you caught the announcement of the most breathtaking, path-breaking advance in 2D geometry since the day the Elements were a gleam in Euclid's eye? This headline in today's Hindu spills the beans:
Five-nation triangular axis mootedAuslin, having done to geometry roughly what Jael (Heber's wife) did to Sisera, is surely a shoo-in for the next Fields Medal.
Monday, May 09, 2011
Hon'ble Supreme Court of India
This may just be me, but the way I pronounce "Hon'ble Supreme Court of India" (as it is often written) in my head, the image that comes to mind is this:
Very weird, no?
In other news the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India may have at least temporarily undone one stinking pile of poo. Bravo.
Very weird, no?
In other news the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India may have at least temporarily undone one stinking pile of poo. Bravo.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
On Pleasing Women - A Quantitative Treatment
Exhibit A
2:22-2:36
Payyan: gundu malli rendu rubai, un koonthal eri uthirum poo kodi rubai
Pen: panchu mittai anju rubai, nee paathi thindru thantetal latche rubai
Translation (mine, bear with me)
Guy: Jasmine flowers, market price Rs. 2; if they are from your locks, Rs. 10,000,000.
Girl: Some kind of candy, Rs. 5; you eat half and give me, Rs. 100,000
A brief calculation shows that the boy derives joy magnified 5,000,000 times when the item in question has passed via the girl, whereas the girl's joy is only multiplied 40,000 times in the reverse scenario.
All further derivations and conclusions are left as exercises for the interested reader.
2:22-2:36
Payyan: gundu malli rendu rubai, un koonthal eri uthirum poo kodi rubai
Pen: panchu mittai anju rubai, nee paathi thindru thantetal latche rubai
Translation (mine, bear with me)
Guy: Jasmine flowers, market price Rs. 2; if they are from your locks, Rs. 10,000,000.
Girl: Some kind of candy, Rs. 5; you eat half and give me, Rs. 100,000
A brief calculation shows that the boy derives joy magnified 5,000,000 times when the item in question has passed via the girl, whereas the girl's joy is only multiplied 40,000 times in the reverse scenario.
All further derivations and conclusions are left as exercises for the interested reader.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Most Random Wordplay Ever
This occurred to me once on a train.
If you take DE JUNC out of ERODE JUNCTION, you're left with EROTION.
Go on, say it out loud, like this, "If you take the junk out of Erode Junction, you're left with erosion."
Ugh.
If you take DE JUNC out of ERODE JUNCTION, you're left with EROTION.
Go on, say it out loud, like this, "If you take the junk out of Erode Junction, you're left with erosion."
Ugh.
Friday, April 01, 2011
a.m. Thoughts on Thermopylae
For some reason, this occurred to me when in the shower today.
The achievement at Thermopylae was not that a 300 highly trained fanatic clones were able to defend a narrow pass for 3 days; it was that some genius of a quartermaster/s managed to supply and support an invading army of hundreds of thousands, comprised of soldiers from vastly different cultures, and some genius of a commander/s managed to keep them motivated and fighting, thousands of kilometres from their homes.
When Hannibal and Alexander do it, it's a great feat of arms and leadership, but when when Xerxes I does it a full 150 years before Alexander, it's all about those 300?! Bah!
The achievement at Thermopylae was not that a 300 highly trained fanatic clones were able to defend a narrow pass for 3 days; it was that some genius of a quartermaster/s managed to supply and support an invading army of hundreds of thousands, comprised of soldiers from vastly different cultures, and some genius of a commander/s managed to keep them motivated and fighting, thousands of kilometres from their homes.
When Hannibal and Alexander do it, it's a great feat of arms and leadership, but when when Xerxes I does it a full 150 years before Alexander, it's all about those 300?! Bah!
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Asereje
A goodish chunk of one of those soullessly cold New England winters was spent watching, listening, and in general being absorbed by this song.
It was a super-duper international hit, of course. At the end of the Inca Trail, the night before the climb to Machu Pichu, there is a camp at Winay Wayna. Where a mixed bunch of very ragged looking tourists spend a night feeling very thrilled that they managed to "trek" 3 days to get there (in reality, a number of extremely frugally equipped Quechua porters carry all your stuff, cook, and in general fuss over you). So there we were, mightily pleased with ourselves, knocking down the pisco sours or whatever, and suddenly someone plays this song and like a bunch of pre-programmed idiots we all stood up and danced the Ketchup dance...
But even so we were obsessed, the roomie went and bought a CD simply because it had 3 video versions of this. Not sure what it was about this one, maybe the promise of exotic tongues, sunny climes, warm bodies... A goodish chunk of the aforementioned goodish chunk was spent, of course, in trying to decide which sister was the "best".
Oh, those days :P
It was a super-duper international hit, of course. At the end of the Inca Trail, the night before the climb to Machu Pichu, there is a camp at Winay Wayna. Where a mixed bunch of very ragged looking tourists spend a night feeling very thrilled that they managed to "trek" 3 days to get there (in reality, a number of extremely frugally equipped Quechua porters carry all your stuff, cook, and in general fuss over you). So there we were, mightily pleased with ourselves, knocking down the pisco sours or whatever, and suddenly someone plays this song and like a bunch of pre-programmed idiots we all stood up and danced the Ketchup dance...
But even so we were obsessed, the roomie went and bought a CD simply because it had 3 video versions of this. Not sure what it was about this one, maybe the promise of exotic tongues, sunny climes, warm bodies... A goodish chunk of the aforementioned goodish chunk was spent, of course, in trying to decide which sister was the "best".
Oh, those days :P
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Friday, October 08, 2010
On Why I'm A Marxist-Leninist - Part the First
Sorry, typo. Marxist-Leninist.
On Why I'm A Martinist-Lennonist
John would've turned 70 today. Imagine. [This post was supposed to go out on October 9. At this rate, it will never get done, so splitting and publishing.]
I love the Beatles. I don't know why this is. I do know when it roughly started. In 1995, The Beatles Anthology documentary came out. It was even shown on DD Metro. I didn't know who the hell The Beatles were; the sum total of my exposure to Western pop music up until that point consisted of Jim Reeves (does anyone even remember this guy and how big he was in India), thanks to some LPs my dad had saved, Boney M from Juristic Person knows where, the "Yesterday Once More" song by The Carpenters, and Matilda by Harry Belafonte. The reason I know this so precisely is because that was literally the 4 western pop things I'd ever heard with any level of seriousness.
Then this anthology thing came along and my neighbour, who was from the metropolis of Nellore, kept running off to the common room in the evenings. I tagged along, mainly to find out what sort of band penetrates through SPB and Ghantasala into the very recesses of outer Nellore.
I was spellbound. I think it's the documentary that did me in. Just watching those boys from Liverpool first turn into scarecrows in a Hamburg cellar, and then into musicians, and then stars, and then musicians again, oh it was magic.
The Nellore fellow had a cassette with him that was doing the rounds in those days, a black cover "Top 20" thing. Borrowed the cassette, borrowed a Walkman from a Hyderabad fellow and just guzzled. After this staggering breakthrough, I learned to like The Doors, Deep Purple, Def Leppard, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and some other suchlike bands, mainly because that's what the fellows whose rooms we got drunk in (Venkataramanav vodka in steel tumblers with water from the hostel mess) would play.
Can't say any of that made a lasting impression, some of it is still nice, but it doesn't grab by the collar and shake the way the Beatles did. The Beatles, and oddly enough, Itzhak Perelman playing The Four Seasons, were the only two things that offered any sort of transcendental musical sustenance.
On Why I'm A Martinist-Lennonist
John would've turned 70 today. Imagine. [This post was supposed to go out on October 9. At this rate, it will never get done, so splitting and publishing.]
I love the Beatles. I don't know why this is. I do know when it roughly started. In 1995, The Beatles Anthology documentary came out. It was even shown on DD Metro. I didn't know who the hell The Beatles were; the sum total of my exposure to Western pop music up until that point consisted of Jim Reeves (does anyone even remember this guy and how big he was in India), thanks to some LPs my dad had saved, Boney M from Juristic Person knows where, the "Yesterday Once More" song by The Carpenters, and Matilda by Harry Belafonte. The reason I know this so precisely is because that was literally the 4 western pop things I'd ever heard with any level of seriousness.
Then this anthology thing came along and my neighbour, who was from the metropolis of Nellore, kept running off to the common room in the evenings. I tagged along, mainly to find out what sort of band penetrates through SPB and Ghantasala into the very recesses of outer Nellore.
I was spellbound. I think it's the documentary that did me in. Just watching those boys from Liverpool first turn into scarecrows in a Hamburg cellar, and then into musicians, and then stars, and then musicians again, oh it was magic.
The Nellore fellow had a cassette with him that was doing the rounds in those days, a black cover "Top 20" thing. Borrowed the cassette, borrowed a Walkman from a Hyderabad fellow and just guzzled. After this staggering breakthrough, I learned to like The Doors, Deep Purple, Def Leppard, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and some other suchlike bands, mainly because that's what the fellows whose rooms we got drunk in (Venkataramanav vodka in steel tumblers with water from the hostel mess) would play.
Can't say any of that made a lasting impression, some of it is still nice, but it doesn't grab by the collar and shake the way the Beatles did. The Beatles, and oddly enough, Itzhak Perelman playing The Four Seasons, were the only two things that offered any sort of transcendental musical sustenance.
Friday, August 27, 2010
(Not So) Free Association
(I)
Read this.
Which is as good a time as any to remember that the thespian in question, this leader of a large Middle Eastern country with a finger on the nuclear button, is this (YouTube link) fellow.
Wonders will never cease.
(II)
Large poster at Teynampet signal. Beaming countenance, saffron robes, Afro.
"I am in you. You are in me. Blah blah blah."
Hmm.
Read this.
Which is as good a time as any to remember that the thespian in question, this leader of a large Middle Eastern country with a finger on the nuclear button, is this (YouTube link) fellow.
Wonders will never cease.
(II)
Large poster at Teynampet signal. Beaming countenance, saffron robes, Afro.
"I am in you. You are in me. Blah blah blah."
Hmm.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
On Writing
Have you ever sat alone in front of a blank page or screen trying to coax words out of you, and the ghost of every memorable writer and the shade of every unforgettable piece you've read start showing up somewhere behind your right shoulder, jostling against each other, and start pushing your diffident fingers this way and that?
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Yeh Mera India
Ever so often there will come along a really good reason for liking ye olde maadar-e-watan. They come far and few in between, for example you find reasons to like Sweden more often than you find reasons to like India.
But when they do come, it is bril. I would go so far as to say it is chelpark even. Be that as it may...
There is now a weekly train, 6687/6688 that connects Mangalore and Jammu Tawi, rejoicing in the dry sawdust like name Navyug Express. It plods for 67 hours over 3600 odd kilometres up and down the deathless vistas of the sub-continent etc. The timetable is magical. Thalassery, Tiruppur, Tirupati, Tenali, Sevagram, Faridabad, Tohana, Malerkotla, Phagwara, Tanda Urmar (!!) and Kathua all linked by one pantry car. And if that wasn't enough, one portion of the train actually starts in Tirunelveli and joins the mother ship at Soil Degradation, Tamil Nadu (also called Erode, sometimes).
The thought that someone from Kovilpatti may be booking a ticket to Kathua is giving me goosebumps this fine Saturday afternoon.
But when they do come, it is bril. I would go so far as to say it is chelpark even. Be that as it may...
There is now a weekly train, 6687/6688 that connects Mangalore and Jammu Tawi, rejoicing in the dry sawdust like name Navyug Express. It plods for 67 hours over 3600 odd kilometres up and down the deathless vistas of the sub-continent etc. The timetable is magical. Thalassery, Tiruppur, Tirupati, Tenali, Sevagram, Faridabad, Tohana, Malerkotla, Phagwara, Tanda Urmar (!!) and Kathua all linked by one pantry car. And if that wasn't enough, one portion of the train actually starts in Tirunelveli and joins the mother ship at Soil Degradation, Tamil Nadu (also called Erode, sometimes).
The thought that someone from Kovilpatti may be booking a ticket to Kathua is giving me goosebumps this fine Saturday afternoon.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Dance Baby, Dance
For those who want to know, this is how I dance (when sober):
When not, however, this is how I dance. More accurately, this is how I think I dance:
When not, however, this is how I dance. More accurately, this is how I think I dance:
Friday, June 25, 2010
Rukaavat Ke Liye...
...not too much khed. Regular transmission may or may not resume in a while. Meanwhile, transmission of a sort continues here.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Lynx Lynx
No blogging has happened in ages. Here, anyway. Nowadays time and energy are consumed here, with the occasional update here.
Nevertheless, lots and lots of links and "thoughts" have been piling up. So here we disgorge.
0
Is there an age after which Sergeant Pepper's starts to become more appealing than Abbey Road? If so, it has happened, I think. Not that I like Abbey Road any less now than before, but Sgt. Pepper seems to have aged better. Oh well.
I
The Economist carried a lovely article on "re-drawing" the map of Europe (to accommodate Syldavia, Borduria etc.) Priceless comments like so
II
Gobbledygook. The original source (PDF) of said g. It would've been funny, if it were not for the fact that there are millions (hundreds of millions!) of "educated" Hindus who will swallow this sort of stuff hook, line and sinker.
III
There is a very interesting but fairly heavy duty argument going on in the "blogosphere", essentially about whether you can derive "ought" from "is". This is a good starting point, but you will have to unravel the thread yourself. In a nutshell, it began like so:
"Militant" atheist, neuroscientist Sam Harris (at a TED talk): Science can answer moral questions.
Physicist Sean Carroll: No it can't. It will tell you what is, but not what ought to be. But that's OK.
Enjoy.
And that will be all for now.
(One fairly interesting and important thought has occurred and escaped. Maybe it will come back.)
Nevertheless, lots and lots of links and "thoughts" have been piling up. So here we disgorge.
0
Is there an age after which Sergeant Pepper's starts to become more appealing than Abbey Road? If so, it has happened, I think. Not that I like Abbey Road any less now than before, but Sgt. Pepper seems to have aged better. Oh well.
I
The Economist carried a lovely article on "re-drawing" the map of Europe (to accommodate Syldavia, Borduria etc.) Priceless comments like so
In Britain’s place should come Poland, which has suffered quite enough in its location between Russia and Germany and deserves a chance to enjoy the bracing winds of the North Atlantic and the security of sea water between it and any potential invaders.And
The Ukrainian shift would allow Russia to move west and south too, thus vacating Siberia for the Chinese, who will take it sooner or later anyway.And finally
The rest of Italy, from Rome downwards, would separate and join with Sicily to form a new country, officially called the Kingdom of Two Sicilies (but nicknamed Bordello).
II
Gobbledygook. The original source (PDF) of said g. It would've been funny, if it were not for the fact that there are millions (hundreds of millions!) of "educated" Hindus who will swallow this sort of stuff hook, line and sinker.
III
There is a very interesting but fairly heavy duty argument going on in the "blogosphere", essentially about whether you can derive "ought" from "is". This is a good starting point, but you will have to unravel the thread yourself. In a nutshell, it began like so:
"Militant" atheist, neuroscientist Sam Harris (at a TED talk): Science can answer moral questions.
Physicist Sean Carroll: No it can't. It will tell you what is, but not what ought to be. But that's OK.
Enjoy.
And that will be all for now.
(One fairly interesting and important thought has occurred and escaped. Maybe it will come back.)
Saturday, March 27, 2010
On Bathrooms, And Trains
toilets; aesthetics of
Thanks to a winged friend who shall remain nameless, I have recently come into possession of one book by name of In Praise of Shadows by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki. It is fairly short, more a long essay than anything else. I first heard about it in the preface of What is Good? and the couple of paragraphs that Grayling quotes was enough to whet the appetite and shamelessly ask said winged personage to lug one copy across the Atlantic and the Eurasian landmass.
The whole thing immediately whisked me back to holidays at the grandparents' house in Marx's own country. Some of the toilets there were outside the house, you had to walk through the garden/grove/plantation (vaLappu for the Mallu unchallenged) to get to it. In June and in the winter, the ground is wet and squelchy all the time, and every nook and cranny is just crawling with life in every form imaginable on 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10++ legs (and sometimes slithering greenly over the undergrowth on its belly). A trip to the loo was a minor expedition, and once safely ensconced and enthroned inside, you could watch a patch of blue sky, framed by the tiles of the eaves and by coconut fronds and betel nut leaves. Or watch the rain come down in a din, sousing all of existence.
Of course, this is all a 20-20 hindsight thing. As kids I think we mostly hated this whole business of having to go outside the house, and having to put up with assorted insects and amphibians while abluting (yes, it's a new word). Why couldn't we just have vitrified tiles and a flush and all that city stuff, we wailed. Going to the loo at night was an endeavour that scared the bejesus out of us. It was bad enough that you had a decent probability of copping it from snakebite, but when assorted relatives had filled you with stories of the brahma rakshas (The Ghost Formerly Known As Strapping-Young-Namboothiri) in the temple peepal, you were, so to speak, emitting bricks, as opposed to what you wanted to in the first place.
Photos of ye olde countryside house are appended for your kind information.
toilets; cleaning of
There is only one secret to cleaning a toilet (or any bathroom, in general).
YOU HAVE TO WANT TO CLEAN IT
You must desire it deeply, uncompromisingly. With the sort of steadfastness that only an Ekalavya type can possess. When you have decided to clean a bathroom one morning, it must seep into every pore, and take over your being. A whole morning, nay a whole day is nothing. You are willing to give up the brunch with friends, the afternoon snooze, the curling up with the book, the checking email, the cup of filter coffee, the long run, or whatever it is that is floating your nautical vehicle at the present time.
You have it in you, or you don't.
I have it.
Note carefully that this is very different from a general desire to keep bathrooms clean on a regular basis, which boatloads of people have. Even I have it, in a very general and non-obsessive way. We are speaking here of a primeval urge to clean. Scrub. On hands and knees. The mildew. Off every fucking tile.
This doesn't happen often. In my case it approximately coincides with return trips of Halley's comet. Nevertheless, the point is to DO IT. And DO IT SUPREMELY WELL. No amount of chemical help is enough. It's a mind game, it's a marathon. And the wall is really a goddamn wall that is laughing in your face.
My autobiography will be called It's Not About The Bathroom Cleaning Chemical Thing.
Indian Railways; obsessions hereto and thereunder
It is impossible to praise IRFCA too much. Pure treasure trove of information. I recently hopped onto their hyper-active mailing list. And I thought I was train obsessed. These guys take it to the next level. For example, here is the story of one thread that I followed. A couple of days back, a new train from Vizag to Kurla (more properly VSKP-LTT) was started.
Several days before this historic event, people on the list had begun to conjecture on
(i) What will be the composition of the train?
(ii) How will it get to Kurla, i.e. which locos from which loco shed will haul it on which stretches?
(iii) Mother of God, is it possible that the thing will be pulled by a diesel engine all the way from VSKP to LTT?!!!!!!
(iv) Taking point # (iii) further, is it true, oh-please-Lord-Laupathgamineshwara-make-it-so, that the same VSKP shed WDM loco will be used all the way to Kurla? I mean, will we have a darshan of diesel in Dombivili? That too an ECoR, VSKP diesel?
et cetera
And sure enough, when the train was flagged off, railfans showed up at stations along the way to gaze lovingly upon this miracle (this is just an ordinary superfast train, mind you) whizzing over the permanent way, past the platform.
In BZA (Vijayawada to you rail challenged), Jayakar took a photograph. In BMT (Begumpet to you all !$#@!%), Vrij actually filmed the train.
And from Kurla came a breathless email, the VSKP diesel was used all the way to Bombay!!!!
Regular readers will be aware that I am the sort of person who will die of joy upon seeing a VSKP locomotive in far off places, but what a joy to find a kindred gang. I love these guys.
Thanks to a winged friend who shall remain nameless, I have recently come into possession of one book by name of In Praise of Shadows by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki. It is fairly short, more a long essay than anything else. I first heard about it in the preface of What is Good? and the couple of paragraphs that Grayling quotes was enough to whet the appetite and shamelessly ask said winged personage to lug one copy across the Atlantic and the Eurasian landmass.
The essay consists of 16 sections that discuss traditional Japanese aesthetics in contrast with change. Comparisons of light with darkness are used to contrast Western and Asian cultures. The West, in its striving for progress, is presented as continuously searching for light and clarity, while the subtle and subdued forms of oriental art and literature are seen by Tanizaki to represent an appreciation of shadow and subtlety.I have finished reading about half of it, and so far so good. Tanizaki does tend to get a little too hi-falutin' about the Japanese way of life, a mildly annoying undercurrent of "Oh it was all so nice in the good 'ol traditional days..." permeates the thing. And he is a little too critical of "Western progress", but beyond that no major cribs. Some parts are just lovely. And when he gets into the aesthetics of toilets I am, of course, spellbound.
The parlor may have its charms, but the Japanese toilet truly is a place of spiritual repose. It always stands apart from the main building, at the end of a corridor, in a grove fragrant with leaves and moss. No words can describe the sensation as one sits in the dim light, basking in the faint glow reflected from the shoji, lost in meditation or gazing out at the garden. The novelist Natsume Soseki counted his morning trips to the toilet a great pleasure, "a physiological delight", he called it. And surely there could be no better place to savor this pleasure than a Japanese toilet where, surrounded by tranquil walls and finely grained wood, one looks out upon blue skies and green leaves.And so on he goes, for a good 2-3 pages.
As I have said there are certain prerequisites: a degree of dimness, absolute cleanliness, and quiet so complete one can hear the hum of a mosquito. I love to listen from such a toilet to the sound of softly falling rain, especially if it is a toilet of the Kanto region, with its long, narrow windows at floor level; there one can listen with a sense of intimacy to the raindrops falling from the eaves and trees, seeping into the earth as they wash over the base of a stone lantern and freshen the moss about the stepping stones.
The whole thing immediately whisked me back to holidays at the grandparents' house in Marx's own country. Some of the toilets there were outside the house, you had to walk through the garden/grove/plantation (vaLappu for the Mallu unchallenged) to get to it. In June and in the winter, the ground is wet and squelchy all the time, and every nook and cranny is just crawling with life in every form imaginable on 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10++ legs (and sometimes slithering greenly over the undergrowth on its belly). A trip to the loo was a minor expedition, and once safely ensconced and enthroned inside, you could watch a patch of blue sky, framed by the tiles of the eaves and by coconut fronds and betel nut leaves. Or watch the rain come down in a din, sousing all of existence.
Of course, this is all a 20-20 hindsight thing. As kids I think we mostly hated this whole business of having to go outside the house, and having to put up with assorted insects and amphibians while abluting (yes, it's a new word). Why couldn't we just have vitrified tiles and a flush and all that city stuff, we wailed. Going to the loo at night was an endeavour that scared the bejesus out of us. It was bad enough that you had a decent probability of copping it from snakebite, but when assorted relatives had filled you with stories of the brahma rakshas (The Ghost Formerly Known As Strapping-Young-Namboothiri) in the temple peepal, you were, so to speak, emitting bricks, as opposed to what you wanted to in the first place.
Photos of ye olde countryside house are appended for your kind information.
toilets; cleaning of
There is only one secret to cleaning a toilet (or any bathroom, in general).
YOU HAVE TO WANT TO CLEAN IT
You must desire it deeply, uncompromisingly. With the sort of steadfastness that only an Ekalavya type can possess. When you have decided to clean a bathroom one morning, it must seep into every pore, and take over your being. A whole morning, nay a whole day is nothing. You are willing to give up the brunch with friends, the afternoon snooze, the curling up with the book, the checking email, the cup of filter coffee, the long run, or whatever it is that is floating your nautical vehicle at the present time.
You have it in you, or you don't.
I have it.
Note carefully that this is very different from a general desire to keep bathrooms clean on a regular basis, which boatloads of people have. Even I have it, in a very general and non-obsessive way. We are speaking here of a primeval urge to clean. Scrub. On hands and knees. The mildew. Off every fucking tile.
This doesn't happen often. In my case it approximately coincides with return trips of Halley's comet. Nevertheless, the point is to DO IT. And DO IT SUPREMELY WELL. No amount of chemical help is enough. It's a mind game, it's a marathon. And the wall is really a goddamn wall that is laughing in your face.
My autobiography will be called It's Not About The Bathroom Cleaning Chemical Thing.
Indian Railways; obsessions hereto and thereunder
It is impossible to praise IRFCA too much. Pure treasure trove of information. I recently hopped onto their hyper-active mailing list. And I thought I was train obsessed. These guys take it to the next level. For example, here is the story of one thread that I followed. A couple of days back, a new train from Vizag to Kurla (more properly VSKP-LTT) was started.
Several days before this historic event, people on the list had begun to conjecture on
(i) What will be the composition of the train?
(ii) How will it get to Kurla, i.e. which locos from which loco shed will haul it on which stretches?
(iii) Mother of God, is it possible that the thing will be pulled by a diesel engine all the way from VSKP to LTT?!!!!!!
(iv) Taking point # (iii) further, is it true, oh-please-Lord-Laupathgamineshwara-make-it-so, that the same VSKP shed WDM loco will be used all the way to Kurla? I mean, will we have a darshan of diesel in Dombivili? That too an ECoR, VSKP diesel?
et cetera
And sure enough, when the train was flagged off, railfans showed up at stations along the way to gaze lovingly upon this miracle (this is just an ordinary superfast train, mind you) whizzing over the permanent way, past the platform.
In BZA (Vijayawada to you rail challenged), Jayakar took a photograph. In BMT (Begumpet to you all !$#@!%), Vrij actually filmed the train.
And from Kurla came a breathless email, the VSKP diesel was used all the way to Bombay!!!!
Regular readers will be aware that I am the sort of person who will die of joy upon seeing a VSKP locomotive in far off places, but what a joy to find a kindred gang. I love these guys.
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Random Juvenile Humour
The below might be construed as poking fun at short people, disabled people, gay people and poets. It may disgust or offend you, to varying degrees. You have been warned.
Last week, That Man Keynes And His Homosexual Intrigues, self and S were lounging in TMKAHHI's house in Bangalore. Two somewhat dissimilar threads of conversation interleaved. On the one hand, all of us had lived in Amherst, MA at some point in our lives, and so we were therefore talking about Robert Frost. On the other hand, TMKAHHI was, in the way he does, telling us about the time a deformed midget (a flipper for one arm or something, his words) of some sort had accosted him while he was waiting at a Bangalore traffic signal and attempted to fondle him.
In the usual manner, we attempted a synthesis so that we could braid the two threads into one and save us the trouble of surreal context switching. Of course, the following resulted:
Stopping By An Autorickshaw At A Noisy Signal
-- Lewd Short Person
Whose wood this is I think I know.
Isn't his auto going rather slow?
He will not mind me stopping here
To watch his wood grow and grow.
...
And so on. At the time it seemed very clever and we nearly died of ROFLMAO. Perhaps only the fact that TMKAHHI had cremated his mother that morning kept things in check.
Last week, That Man Keynes And His Homosexual Intrigues, self and S were lounging in TMKAHHI's house in Bangalore. Two somewhat dissimilar threads of conversation interleaved. On the one hand, all of us had lived in Amherst, MA at some point in our lives, and so we were therefore talking about Robert Frost. On the other hand, TMKAHHI was, in the way he does, telling us about the time a deformed midget (a flipper for one arm or something, his words) of some sort had accosted him while he was waiting at a Bangalore traffic signal and attempted to fondle him.
In the usual manner, we attempted a synthesis so that we could braid the two threads into one and save us the trouble of surreal context switching. Of course, the following resulted:
Stopping By An Autorickshaw At A Noisy Signal
-- Lewd Short Person
Whose wood this is I think I know.
Isn't his auto going rather slow?
He will not mind me stopping here
To watch his wood grow and grow.
...
And so on. At the time it seemed very clever and we nearly died of ROFLMAO. Perhaps only the fact that TMKAHHI had cremated his mother that morning kept things in check.
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