Author: SK

Yesterday I was suddenly reminded of this wonderful game that kept our mornings, lunch breaks and any other free time busy – Kalla Police. For the uninitiated, Kalla is the Kannada word for thief so this translates to “thief police”. So the game is obviously about catching thieves etc. Anyways this post is not for you so you can move on to the next item. Or maybe to the comments on this post (once they happen).

Coming to the initiated, who have played and have a good idea of what the game is all about. Basically I’ve forgotten the rules. Yes, we did have a set of rules (were fairly constant i think) and there was strict enforcement. I tried googling for it, but to no avail. I even did a google blog search, again without much luck. There were a couple of passing mentions but nothing that explained the rules.

So, I want you to remind me of the rules of Kalla Police. I know it varied from school to school, and even class to class and section to section in the same school. I know there are various versions. But please do write in with your version. I hope to soon have a repository of Kalla Police variations, with which I can recollect the version we used to play.

And oh yeah, I’m referring to the “physical version” of Kalla Police here, the one which involves running around and catching the thieves etc. Yesterday i made the mistake of asking a girl from my school for the rules and she started talking about some game which you play with chits (oh yeah, she happens to be from another section. my section girls would remember the real thing i think – they used to play with us.). That’s not something I’m looking for.

I’m waiting to hear from you people.

Then	Now
Pencil	Pencil
Rubber	Eraser
Scale	Ruler
Mender	Sharpener
Gum	Glue
Gum Tape	Cello Tape

you know any more examples?

Finally there seems to be a counterbalance to all the traders’ protests against organized retail. As I had almost predicted three months ago (it got lost in one of the drafts in this post), farmers’ unions have started taking sides with organized retail. Business Standard reports:

The Bhartiya Kisan Union (Ambavat faction) today submitted a memorandum to Chief Minister Mayawati and the district magistrate of Lucknow, demanding an immediate reopening of the Reliance stores in Lucknow and other places in UP.

I think it’s only a matter of time before such protests will start gaining ground elsewhere. And thus will begin the farmer-trader battle that I’d talked about three months ago. I had predicted then that the farmer, and thus organized retail, will win. Only time can tell what will happen.

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Strong stuff. For more details check http://www.google.com/transliterate/indic/

Hope a similar thing comes in for other indian languages soon. Chatting with relatives will be so much more peaceful then!

as for what I’ve written here, it’s my favorite doha. and quite strong also…. like at IIMB when i used to get a “you there? how are you?” message from people who usually didn’t message me, i knew that they required some help wiht some assignment!

Try eat congress with raw onion pieces sometime. Unmitigated combination. Soopar taste.

(for the uninitiated, congress is a variety of masala roasted peanut, so called because they use split peanuts rather than the whole. the congress split, remember?)

that people continue to invest in UP… check out maya didi’s latest antics

Mayawati, who on Wednesday hailed the new policy as a “boon for farmers of the state”, explained, “earlier I had ordered a survey on the impact of the new?farm policy and intelligence reports submitted to me last night revealed that farmers were unhappy with the new policy, so we have decided to withdraw the same with immediate effect.”

through some data i managed to scrouge out of some investment banker friends, I estimate the total amount of subprime loans doled out in 2005 alone comes up to around USD 150 billion!

to get an idea about the amount of money, Reliance Industries (RIL) has a market cap of around USD 54 billion!

It’s as if the amount loaned out in subprime loans is enough to buy reliance 3 times over!

ah, well…??

I’m wondering what happens to the Ladder Theory in context of arranged marriages. In other words, how would you react if someone wants to set up you and your friend? Going by the ladder theory, I guess it isn’t too tough for guys since the friend will be there somewhere on his only ladder.

The question is from the girl’s point of view. Assuming that the guy is somewhere near the top of the “never” ladder, how will she evaluate him vis-a-vis other “arranged matches” who are not there in either ladder? Would she put a “known devil” funda and shift him (reluctantly) to the other ladder or does she say “once a friend always a friend and that’s it” and look elsewhere?