Category: arbit

Falling in louvvu can be hard on the head

It’s been a long time since I hit on someone. Two years and four months to be precise. Actually, even that is not so precise. You could give it a standard deviation of ten days, for I don’t really know as to where to draw the line on my blading. After that, I haven’t hit on anyone. Promise. I’ve had two fifteen minute crushes (one in a bus and one at a cane chair shop) but didn’t have the opportunity to talk to either of them.

Apart from this, I have quit two jobs. I have been through two periods of joblessness (one of them fairly protracted). Things have been very bad on the family front. I have been through a protracted (over two years) period of low confidence. Putting blade on someone has been the last thing on my mind. It also hasn’t helped that I haven’t met a single new bladable interesting girl in this period of time.

So when I suddenly come across this fairly interesting girl, I don’t really know what to do. One part of me tells me that I’m totally out of practice, and will only bring misery upon myself if I go ahead with the blading. This part tells me that I’m not ready to put blade yet. This reminds me of the pain I went through in my previous blading attempts. This tells me that the girl might already have a boyfriend, and that she lives in a different city.

The other side tells me such opportunities are rare, and I should go for it. This part reminds me of the goalkeeper theory in case she has a boyfriend. When I put forward the question as to the probability of making it given that it’ll be long distance, this part tells me about the Alonso theory (I’ll blog about this on the TS blog in a couple of days). This part tells me that if i keep passing up on half-chances like this, I am likely to die a virgin. And that I must go for it.

Even if i decide to go for it, I don’t know whether to take it to heart or treat it like a long shot. My late father used to talk about his “thread theory”. “Imagine you need to move a mountain, and you have a thread”, he used to say. “You put the thread around the mountain and give it your best shot. If you succeed, you’ve moved a mountain. Else you’ve only lost a thread”. I know that if I don’t put my heart and soul into this, I won’t be able to give it my best shot. On the other, putting heart and soul into this would increase my costs significantly. Unlike Alonso, my best shot isn’t my long shot.

I don’t know if it is rational to be irrational when you are thinking of putting blade. This, once again ties in with the above point as to whether I should put heart and soul into the long shot. Vyshnavi is firm when she tells me that I should be completely rational and never lose my head. Neha has also maintained that the most important decisions in the blading process are taken by the head, and not by the heart.

Then there is the issue of the advisor. Especially for an amateur like me, an advisor in the deal can be of great help. However, sometimes the problem with an advisor is that you should necessarily take his/her opinion on things. If you do something against his/her advice, you’ll get blamed for it. Thankfully, Neha, who was my advisor on my last attempted deal, did a fairly good job. She gave me her space, and gave her expert advice only when asked for. However, the choice of Neha as lead advisor on that deal presented a new set of problems.

My mother considers herself to be an authority on relationships, and got upset that I had selected Neha to advice me on that deal (my mom knew the girl I was blading then). She had made me promise to her that I make her advisor on the next deal. However, getting your mother involved in a deal is never a good idea. What if it doesn’t work out? Won’t she feel bad about it then? Shouldn’t I be telling her about the deal only when it has a good chance of becoming pukka? Or should I just keep the promise.

The blading procedure itself is another story. From my long career, I get the feeling that my half-rude half-arrogant half-sugary (i know it doesn’t add up; i don’t care) doesn’t generally make the right kind of impact. After every breakdown of a deal, I jot down a set of “learnings” in my head and promise to make use of those in my next deal. However, I’m not confident at all of not repeating my earlier mistakes. Also, if my own style hasn’t been working, is it fair to assume someone else’s style just for blading? Won’t I be dishonest to the woman by not showing her my true self? Won’t there be the risk of my mask falling off?

And how should I approach this? The last few times, I made the mistake of getting on to the wrong ladder. i suppose I should somehow get onto the right ladder at an early stage. How do I manage that without appearing despo? It’s ok to tell people “i’m considering the possibility of working for your company” but you’ll get slapped if you say upfront “i’m considering the possibility of marrying you. need to think about it”. Anyway.

I think I should first figure out whether this will be a long shot or whether I should put my full enthu for it. Once that is done, then I can either strategically pass, or unleash, as the case may be. I will probably go for it without a formal advisor this time, just using one or two friends as sounding boards. I’ll probably just stick to my own countrax style – I usually believe in being honest.

Even if I take care of all this, there is this old problem of figuring out what things are like on the other side. The old problem of quantum mechanics will remain. The whole process of “non-destructive testing”. The problem which I’d famously called “Schrodinger’s girlfriend“. I request you to wish me luck on this.

The IITM Open Quiz and LTCM

Yesterday, I lamented about the fact that the IITM Open Quiz is no more, because the quizzers at IITM decided to default on their obligation to take the great tradition forward. I then called for volunteers to contribute questions so that we can hold the quiz at a different date.

I’m reminded of the collapse of Long Term Capital Management. There, when the company was about to default, different ibanks all (all except Bear Stearns) pitched in with a little bit of money each to resurect it. Similarly, this time we can expect us old quizmasters of the quiz to contribute a few questions each in order to bail it out.

However, we should remember that the LTCM bailout couldn’t have been done by the ibanks alone. The most important player back then was the US government. Similarly we need a  government-like player here who can facilitate the resurrection of the quiz, and assure all “creditors” (people who “lend” questions) that their efforts won’t go in vain (for the record, creditors to LTCM encashed their bailout money at a substantial profit a few years later).

I had also mentioned yesterday that there is no point if the IITM Open is held at a place other than IITM. The government, we thus think, should be IITM. However, it won’t be as easy to get buy-in from the IITM Student Community (who are critical to doing all the GA work, etc.) as it would be to get buy-in from the profs/admin (who have been sympathetic to this quiz throughout its existence). It’s like the US president agrees to orchestrate the bailout but the treasury department employees who have to actually do the work become hostile.

I wonder what steps we can take in order to turn this situation around, and get the people to organize the quiz. As I had mentioned earlier, getting volunteers on the quizmaster front won’t be fight.

Bongobondhus

On Sunday I got my new house cleaned. Some three bongs came to do the job and the first thing they wanted was some consumables. “Tezaab, saarof aur bhim powder”, one of them said. The first was understandable – I clearly remember from the posters of the Anil Kapoor – Madhuri Dixit starrer (incidentally the first ever hindi movie i saw) that “Tezaab is acid”. But saarof and bhim? I thought it was something local to Gurgaon. So I took one of them along to the shop.

It turned out that he wanted Surf and Vim. It seems I was too late to put on my “bong filter” .

I must say they did an excellent job of cleaning (and they better have done, for the small fortune they charged me for it). Finally I ask them where their names and where they are from. One of them had disappeared by then. The others gave their name as “bhokto” and “orjun”. And they said they are from Kolkota. I asked them if they are from Kolkota or from Bangladesh, and they immediately pulled out their Election Voter ID Cards to ostensibly prove they are Indians!

Facebook App – how do you know each other?

Ok i know i’ve blogged this before. It was sometime in December 06, and it was on my old blog. About situations where you meet two people who know each other, and you don’t nkow how they know each other. And then it’s the time for long explanations and all that.

The same happens online also.  People you least expected to know each other will be friends on facebook, and you’ll need to know how they know each other. I wonder if an app can be built on this idea. And this is al that is there in my head right now.

Something like you can pick 2 people in your friends list and ask them how they know each other. There will be a page for every such pair of people, and this page will be visible to all those who are common friends of both. The page will be initialy populated with the answer to the question that facebook asks you when someone friends you – “how do you know XXXX”. and you  give an answer such as “I went to kindergarten with her”. this will form the basis of that page, and people can grow that page by asking questions and putting answers (say let’s restrict size of each message to 140 characters, to preent people from boring us)

Actually we can have a hypergraph here – a “how do you guys know each other” need not be addressed to just two people. It could be addressed to more people, provided they form a clique (for the uninitiated, a clique is a set of people where everyone knows everyone else). and there can be a page for these. and then you can have cliques being subcliques of supercliques, and all that.

will be max fun, i think. and can b e supported by advertising. let me know if any of you want to develop this (i’m too lazy, of course). I give you full permissions, as long as you credit the idea to my name. you can keep the money.

going through old mails

On sunday morning I leave for Gurgaon. This computer (which I’ve been using since IIMB days) will remain in Bangalore, and my mother will continue to use it. Just remembered that I have all my IIMB mail on this. And thought I should go through the lot. just for the heck of it. a few pertinent observations (I’ll keep putting in bullet points here as i go through the mailbox)

  • It seems in my first term at IIMB, my contact with the outside world (apart from parents) was minimal. Most email is from others at IIMB,and mostly acad related. And I clearly remember I’d stopped using my yahoo id then – the IIMB id was my primary ID
  • For some reason I can’t remember right now, I’d nicknamed Neha Jain as “Exception”. Of course I was to go on to later name her after a Mallu band, and that nickname happened to stick. And I’m still the only person who knows the real real reason why she’s called what she’s called. And I still plan to keep it a secret
  • God Sriram used to mail me fairly regularly back then. It’s kinda surprising now, but back then he seems to be the most frequent non-IIMB mailer to my IIMB ID. And in one mail he writes “Looks like the pertinent obs. are becoming vaguer and vaguer”. And for the uninitiated, it was God who had first come up with the phrase “pertinent observations”
  • My sense of humour back then seems quite weird – at least in hindsight. For example I wrote Ranga, who was studying in UMich saying “how many times have you drowned in Lake Michigan? And is it cold out there?”
  • I found this mail from Manish Chiddarwar which said “Hi, I wrote yesterday’s cluedo mystery. The intention was to have fun and not to hurt anyone’s feelings. I’m sorry if I took it too far. Regards, Manish”. This mail had been sent to Vikram Dua; Neha Jain; Arushi Nehra; Padam Chhabra; Venkataraman Aswath; Karthik S; Dawanchya Anita; Arnab Deb; Amitesh Rattan with a CC to Vinit Mahadevan. For context, please ask Kodhi. And kodhi replied saying “no hard feelings especially considering the fact that having wimpy for a son would make anyone proud”
  • A number of mails from friends back at IITM replying to my mails to them asking them to send proof of some “positions of responsibility” that i held at IITM
  • Muthu Mohon had sent a mail titled “Apex: Finally some progress”
  • Back in 2004, I used to start all my mails with a “hi!!”. somehow find that slightly rude now
  • Rachit Prasad had sent me a mail in early 2005, before he joined IIMB. He introduced himself thus: I’m a dig from Bangalore in IITM Mech who also stays in Banashankari, but in 2nd stage”

Ok I put NED now. Will publish.

Instant D Moments

I don’t know how manyeth time it was. I don’t normally keep count of these things, though given my superior long-term memory, you might expect me to. There have been two earlier instances where this kind of a thing has been documented. There was one more yesterday, which I’m not going to write about since I didn’t think it was too significant. After all it lasted for hardly a minute.

I’m talking about instances where you see a girl and instantly feel the desire to put blade on her. Going by the AIDA framework these are cases where D happens within a couple of seconds of the first A. Where before you know it, there is a strong attraction that you face towards this person. And you are usually so shocked or so stunned that you finally end up doing nothing, and fritter this opportunity away.

Madwoman tells me that the total worldwide supply of such “instant D moments” (as I’ve christened this just now) is limited, and that by enjoying a large number of such moments, and yet doing nothing about it, I’m doing a great disservice to society in general and myself in particular. I don’t know about this. But I’m not sure if this kind of thing can be really manufactured. In case you drive yourself to desperation, “instant I moments” (again going by AIDA) can be manufactured – you get interested in every girl you meet. But instant D moments – I think – cannot be manufactured.

Given that there is some sort of an “extrernal force” which decides upon these moments (note that this statement doesn’t imply that I’m religious), the first thing I wonder is what the distribution of these moments is like, and whether Madwoman’s statement about the same holds. I’m reminded of this case where when brains were being distributed across India, a fixed quantity was allocated to each state, which meant that per capita, the larger states (BIMARU; let’s not count Maharashtra or AP here since there are several states within states there) got shortchanged. Also, there is the accusation that the giver of brains forgot to stir while distributing in Bihar.

That bad digression aside, I once again wonder about the distribution of these moments, and wonder if I’ll feel like that ever again. Given that I’ve let at least three opportunities let go, I don’t know if I’ll get another chance. I dont’ know if i’ll get another chance which I can convert. Over the last few days I’ve been telling myself that I need to ask to get things done. That by not asking for something I’m giving myself a zero chance of getting it. But then, when an Instant D Moment strikes you, you stop being rational and forget the theory you formulated an hour ago.

Such is life

random

I’m hallucinating a lot nowadays. I see things that don’t exist. Hear sounds and words that have never been spoken. Imagine a number of random things. Dream a lot. A hell of a lot. And usually wake up scared. And I can never remember any dreams. In fact, I can never remember what I was thinking of a few moments back.

Very frequently, thoughts literally slip away from my mind. I think I know what I’m thinking, but in a few moments, I don’t have that good an idea and a couple of frantic steps, when I’m trying to get hold of the thought, later, it’s all gone. I don’t remember a thing.

It seems like the awful short term memory is the price that one has to pay for a superior long-term memory.

Washing your arse in the Thames

A popular idiom in Kannada is “Thamesnalli tika toLko” which translates to “wash your arse in the Thames”. This phrase, in its various forms, is used to refer to people who try to act westernized. People who are sometimes called “pseud” as short form for “pseudo american” in certain dialects. I think even the word “peter” (in the non-quizzing sense) can be considered to be a synonym of this phrase.

My biggest crib with this idiom is that it’s technically incorrect. Basically, no one washes their arse in the Thames. In fact, in areas around the Thames, people don’t wash their arse at all, except maybe during bath. Extending this argument, one of the traits which enables you to be described as “thamesnalli tika toLko” is using toilet paper – which implies that you don’t wash your arse, thus turning the description into a contradiction in itself.

I wonder how this phrase originated. I think it is clear to assume that the phrase was invented by people who usually wash their arses after crapping, rather than wiping it. Could it be because these people assumes that, like them, everyone washes their arse? Or is the kind of water that one uses to wash one’s arse an indicator of one’s “type”, “jaati“, “category”, “level” and all that? In that case why doesn’t one come across an idiom such as “washing your arse with Bisleri” or some such thing?

The other explanation I have is that this is indeed an extremely sophisticated idiom. The argument is that real Westerners don’t wash their arses at all. The idiom refers to people who are actually Indian (Kannadiga to be precise) but who try to act as if they are firang. So even if they go to London, and speak only English and all that – that they are actually desi implies that they wash their arses and not wipe it. So the only people who would have actually washed their arses with Thames water will be these types.

Of course, if this theory is true, it is not valid any more, for usage of toilet paper in India has grown leaps and bounds in the last few years. And you have a number of people who are otherwise extremely Indian who only wipe their arses, not wash them.

What do you think of this idiom? Why do you think this originated? Is it still valid? If not, what would you suggest as an alternative? Or we to discourage idioms such as these? Please share your thoughts.

(Disclosure: I have indeed washed my arse in the Thames. Not directly of course (I mean I’ve never squatted and relieved myself on the banks of the river), but I’ve washed my arse with water which I believe originated the river. Don’t ask me how I managed this in England where most loos don’t have a source of water in the loos. And I don’t think I figuratively qualify to have washed my arse in the Thames)