Author: SK

Double meanings

I seem to be looking out for “double meanings” in everything. I’m reminded of that seen in Upendra’s seminal movie Shhhh, where the director Kashinath is reputed to be a master of double meanings, and he has an assistant whose sole job is to point out the double meanings that some of the dialogues that Kashinath writes imply.

So earlier today I told

[info]sw_aadisht

?”can you do one help?” I know it’s completely ungrammatical but this is the way I used to talk back in my childhood when my english was fairly pathetic. A couple of minutes later I realized that “help” can also be a noun. Such as say “domestic help”. And so there was the double meaning.

A couple of minutes back, I was responding to some comments on some earlier post. And in my hurry to type, and given that my fingers usually don’t talk to each other, I put the space in the wrong position. The comment reads “can bed one once the road is expanded”. And in a minute or two, I’d noticed the double meaning. And here I am blogging about it.

Then, a few days back I was talking to this friend when she felt sleepy. Again my left middle finger played tricks on me and I typed “sweet creams” instead of “sweet dreams”. Only after she’d responded with at “thu” did I realize that there was some double meaning here too.

Buying pickles in Sringeri

That’s what i did immediately before I proceeded to the VidyaShankara temple to look for porn. I spent half an hour at the Sri VidyaShankara Home Products store buying pickles and other assorted condiments. I ended up buying a bottle of Appe Midi Mango pickle (made out of whole uncut tiny mangoes). Then one bottle of Amla (nallikai) thokku – a kind of chutney made with full amlas. My mom later told me she was keen we bought this because I usually don’t eat the fruit in amla pickles, and that it’s good for health.

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Congress fooled by randomness?

It seems like.

They decided to extrapolate based on one data point – Tejaswini Sriramesh beating Deve Gowda – or there might be another which I can’t recall right now and they came to the wonderful conclusion that the Deve Gowda family will get defeated when faced with women candidates. They even got an astrologer to endorse it. And put up two hapless inexperienced women to take on the ghataanughatis? that are Deve Gowda’s sons.

In vaguely unrelated stuff, I wonder if the results of the elections would have been any different had the order of polling been reversed. The main concern for most voters this time round was a stable single-party government – having learned the lessons from two horrible coalitions in the last four years.

Now, considering the BJP’s performance in North Karnataka, and assuming that the exit polls didn’t do too badly, people in the south and center would’ve realized that voting for the BJP would give them the best chance of producing a stable government. And the BJP would’ve won comfortably, without having to bother about haggling with independents.

And also it seems like the Congress and JDS will try and hijack the independent MLAs and somehow cobble together a slim majority. It’ll be a great tragedy if that happens – especially given that we’ve seen how these two parties have worked together before. As it stands out, I expect the BJP to buy out the three MLAs it needs to form a government.

More on pricing of air tickets

More than a week back, I had written in my blog that the airports need to change the fee structure of user charges, etc. so as to drive the marginal cost down to zero so as to ensure more efficient usage of seat space and better revenue management. It seems like I didn’t? do my research too well. Out of the approx. Rs. 2800 in “fixed charges”, about Rs. 500 only is user charges, the rest being levied by the airlines as “fuel surcharge” (remember that airline fuel isn’t subsidized like petrol or diesel).

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Zoning with respect to the new airport

Now that the airport has been successfully moved, despite the vehement protests from the powerful IT-BT-ITES lobby and various others, the next fear is that these companies will move close to the new airport. As it stands now, I’m not sure how the NH7 and other roads that lead to the new airport are going to deal with the increased traffic. If you add to this traffic generated due to commercial space in the same direction, things can get really bad indeed.

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Discounting at megamart

Megamart (the discount chain run by Arvind Brands) has a really weird discount policy. Usually, the discounting mechanism that clothing stores follow is progressive discounting – the more you buy the more discount you get. In fact, even Megamart was following this practice a few months back. “Buy one get 20% off; buy two and get 30% off” and so on. This kind of discounting encourages more sales per footfall, and so the discount is worth it.

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Dravid might have read Taleb

In yesterday’s post-match ceremony, Ramiz Raja complimented Rahul Dravid for his excellent captaincy. To which Dravid replied “well, I’ve done the same thing that I did in the previous games. Nothing special. You are complimenting me only because we won”. Honest stuff. Rather than simply taking the credit that was offered to him on a platter, he gives what I think is a rational explanation. Rather, I think if he had said “yeah I captained well today so we won” people would’ve said “you lost the last five games because you DIDN’T captain well”. So the way he handled it also helped him take the blame off his captaincy.

Then he goes on to say, “I think luck plays a big part in these games. In every game, you do the same things. Sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t. Today luck was with us so we won” or something to that effect. Read this article by Amit Varma for related stuff..

Where does Nassim Taleb fit into all this? In Fooled by Randomness, he talks about exactly the same problem. I think he uses the example of CEO pay (I’m not sure). And goes on to say exactly what Dravid said – that two people might do exactly the same thing but one guy will turn out to be luckier and he’ll end up being hailed as a significantly better leader. That a small change in luck can have a huge impact on the career

Regarding the second Bangalore Photowalk

I must confess I didn’t do a very good job yesterday when I announced the second Bangalore Photowalk. I was listening to a podcast while I was writing it, so I was a bit distracted. Just to confirm the salient features:

  • The walk will happen on 1st June 2008 between Ravindra Kalakshetra and the erstwhile Central Jail
  • We begin at 7:30 am sharp – it’s a slightly longish route and there are too many things worth photographing on the route so I think we should start early
  • From what I see, I think it’ll be a building-oriented walk. Lots of good buildings in the route
  • Some of the buildings that we’ll see during the walk
    • Ravindra Kalakshetra
    • Sir Puttannachetty Town Hall
    • The LIC Building
    • The Corporation Building
    • Bux-Ranka house
    • Hudson Church
    • YMCA
    • RBI (though I’m not sure if it’s safe to photograph it)
    • Daly Hall
    • UVCE
    • Central Jail
  • We should end the walk by around 10 am near the Central Jail, following which we will proceed to Kamat Yatri Nivas for breakfast
  • All are welcome. You are welcome even if you don’t carry a camera and are just interested in walking along with us on a nice Sunday morning. Of course you should be prepared to walk
  • I’m not sure of parking facilities around the Ravindra Kalakshetra. The nearest bus stop is Town Hall, to where you should get buses from all over the city
  • As usual, you don’t need to pay anything. Except for the breakfast of course.
  • I would advise you to carry a cap, a water bottle and a camera. I would also advise you to wear comfortable footwear.
  • There is a yahoo group I’ve started. it’s called blorephotowalk. Join. I need to approve your membership though
  • I request you to give more publicity for this walk. On your blog or website or maybe even in some papers or something 😛 .
  • RSVP. Either leave a comment here (with your name) or mail me at skthewimp[at]yahoo[dot]com
  • The latest issue of Bengaluru pages, and citizen matters have carried reviews of the first walk.

Sarkari Walk

Ok. It’s time for the second Bangalore Photo Walk. As I had mentioned earlier, it’ll happen on June 1. We will start off close to where we started off last time. However, we’ll proceed in a totally different direction.

Here is the route that we are going to take:
View Larger Map

We begin in front of the Ravindra Kalakshetra on J C Road at 7:30 am. The reason for the early start is that this particular route has a lot more photograph-able stuff compared to last month, and so I expect us to be walking slower. Also, the route is slightly longer than the one that we took last month.

Starting from Ravindra Kalakshetra, we walk down J C Road till we reach the Corporation circle. Having gone round and round in circles in that area (I personally find it quite photogenic; I hope you people think the same), we proceed along Nrupathunga road. We’ll be movingagainst the direction of the one way but it’s ok since we will be walking.

At K R Circle, we will be doing a LT 30 (approximately) and walking up Seshadri Road. We will be passing by a large number of old educational institutions here. The walk will officially end in front of the erstwhile Central Jail. After that, those of us that are hungry and willing will cut into Gandhinagar and have breakfast at Kamat Yatri Nivas (considering that we’ll be tired and hungry, I think we should target the buffet breakfast).

This is a slightly longish walk so please make sure you land up on time. Please tell your friends also. Maybe you could give footage for the walk on your blog/website. I hope for a better turnout than we got last time (11 to be precise). The first walk has had some good press, both in The Bengaluru Pages and in Citizen Matters. The Bengaluru Pages article is not online. However Priya has been kind enough (I love that phrase, don’t I?) to snail mail over a few copies of the magazine. I’ll distribute them to the walkers on the next walk.

I’ve also started a Bangalore Photo Walk yahoo group, which will allow us to be in touch through email. It’s called blorephotowalk. I request you to join it.

Hierarchy of wedding invites

1. Email sent to a mailing list, with scanned invitation attached
2. Email sent to a number of individual email ids, all on BCC. Addressed to “Dear All” or some such thing. Scanned invitation attached
3. Email sent to you only. Starts off with a “Dear Karthik, trust you are doing great.” blah blah. Scanned invitation attached
4. Email sent to you only. Starts off with a “Dear Karthik, trust you are doing great.” blah blah. Scanned invitation attached. Then the person checks on IM if you’ve received it and asks you to come.
5. Email sent to you only. Starts off with a “Dear Karthik, trust you are doing great.” blah blah. Scanned invitation attached. This is followed by a phone call.
6. Email or phone asking for your address. Physical card arrives by snail mail. You get a follow-up call.
7. You meet in some random place (such as a train or at work) and the person physically hands you the card.
8. The person comes to your home and hands over the card to you

Tell me if i’ve missed something. There’s a reason I’ve used integers for the numbering. There is an infinite number of real numbers between each pair of integers in order to fit in more levels.