The F Quartet

Paper Trail

2009-09-15T11:42:00.000+05:30

One gratifying thing about fiction is the inevitable appearance of some benevolent force just when everything seems dark for our heroes. A terrestrial bacterium, US Air Force, Fenton Hardy, there is absolutely no limit to what can be conjured up to extricate the hapless protagonist. Deus Ex Machina, however, seldom comes to the rescue of ordinary mortals. More often than not, we have to rely on our brains and just sometimes, even the lack of it in others. Which was how Sagar came out tops in what might have been his Waterloo.

An ideal exam would be one in which you had all the answers, could finish everything in time and come out of the hall with a warm fuzzy feeling inside you. In a less than ideal situation however, you would have to keep peeking across the shoulder of the person sitting in front of you. And in a downright hostile situation, the supervisor would catch you doing this. It doesn’t take a genius to guess the scenario in which Sagar found himself during that fateful day. Now Miss S (our supervisor), having observed poor Sagar taking a more than passing interest in another’s paper, promptly divested him of his answer sheets and placed them on her own desk. Sagar was however not asked to leave the hall. The so-near yet so-far taunt has been refined by supervisors over a period of time and Sagar looked set to spend the rest of the exam gazing longingly at his answer sheets. But this wasn’t to be, for exactly at that moment, entered the second shift supervisor, Mr.P. Now with the entrance of Mr. P, the average intelligence in the room had moved considerably southwards. And this was where Sagar’s fortunes began to change.

With Miss S having left and his papers lying innocuously in front of Mr.P’s desk, Sagar’s mind went into overdrive. Filling up a blank sheet with whatever he could think of, he duly went and placed this sheet on top of the pile of confiscated sheets sitting on Mr.P’s desk. By the time a second sheet had been placed there, Mr.P’s mental machinery had realized that something was amiss. Mustering up his most authoritarian voice, Mr.P looked straight into Sagar’s eyes and asked him why the papers were being kept there. Without missing a beat, Sagar replied, ‘Sir, I don’t have a stapler. Since the papers kept flying off my desk, I’m keeping it here.’ A visibly nonplussed Mr.P (who would later on become our HOD), then screamed at Sagar to take his papers back and submit it along with everyone else.

Sagar, never one to disappoint a prof, obliged.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Etiquette

2008-11-01T19:50:00.001+05:30

I just finished reading The Complete Idiot's Guide to Etiquette by Mary Mitchell. I'm something of a slob when it comes to eating. Which was never a problem until recently. In the past my parents, aunts and other doting relatives took my unbridled enthusiasm at the dinner table to be an acknowledgement of their culinary skills. However after becoming a corporate slave my clients and colleagues were less wont to look upon kindly at my take-no-prisoners attitude to dining. Thus the book.

The book dilly dallies a bit about the usual riff-raff of how etiquette is meant to show respect, kindness etc etc., before it jumps straight into the dining etiqutte section - or in this case, steps lightly into the dining etiquette section, gracefully raising her dress a little above her ankle.

Some random samplings from the book:

-Before you sit down at your table, introduce yourself to any dining companions you don’t know and say hello to those you do.If you simply sit down, you risk having to shout your name across the centerpiece to people who, if they can hear you, won’t remember what you said.

-Tilt the soup plate away from you to get the last bit of soup.

-The toast originated during the Middle Ages, when people put a piece of scorched bread into a tankard of beer or wine because they thought it improved the flavor of the drink.

-If you’re the one being toasted, just listen quietly to the toast and then say a quick thank-you. Don’t even put your hand on your glass, much less drink.

At one point in the narrative the author says that she knows ordinarily sensible people who turn buffet meals into the siege of the Bastille as they seem to think the food will be taken away before they get some or that others will take all of the food, leaving them to starve. Which is strange, because I don't remember us ever getting introduced.

Rowling's speech at Harvard - A must read!

2008-06-21T10:15:00.003+05:30

If you haven’t already done so, read J K Rowling’s Commencement Address for the Harvard University students.

“…Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can't remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard…”

Back in IIM-A, there were too many people who dismissed the Harry Potter books as ‘fluff’ (i.e. lacking depth) or being too simplistic. Well her detractors should definitely be satisfied with her speech at Harvard, which packed in substance and sobriety while managing to be funny and inspirational. A must read.

“…I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools…”

The full speech can be found here.

India's contribution to modern science

2008-06-17T12:38:00.006+05:30

I usually steer away from the flavor of the month science related books that throw up some or the other interesting discovery – only to have them contradicted in next month’s release (Michael Hanlon has an interesting take on this subject and blogger Sandy blows the lid off certain such ‘studies’ in her blog).

There are however some books that are a welcome break from this trend, if not for the durability of their scientific rigor at least for their ability to realize, that they do not, in fact, have all the answers. These are the books that question entrenched mindsets but do so with the politeness, carefulness and smartness of someone who knows the bounds of his or her own knowledge. Dick Teresi’s Lost Discoveries is just such a book.

Through this book the author tries to single handedly restore to the many (often faceless) Indian, Mayan, Chinese, Arab and Babylonian scientists the credit that rightfully belonged to them but which, through the caprices of fate and the avarice of men, had eluded them over the ages. It is a lofty ambition; while I’ll let readers decide whether or not he is successful in this endeavor, his research brings to light some (that were to me) unknown and intriguing facts about the science that existed in our own country.

Here is a sampling:
#Two hundred years before Pythagoras, philosophers in northern India had understood that gravitation held the solar system together, and that therefore the sun, the most massive object, had to be at its center.

#Twenty-four centuries before Isaac Newton, the Hindu Rig-Veda asserted that gravitation held the universe together

#The Sanskrit-speaking Aryans subscribed to the idea of a spherical earth in an era when the Greeks believed in a flat one.

#The Indians of the fifth century A.D. somehow calculated the age of the earth as 4.3 billion years; scientists in nineteenth-century England were convinced it was 100 million years. (The modern estimate is 4.6 billion years.)

#Indians between 800 and 500 B.C. had their own version of the Pythagorean theorem as well as a procedure for obtaining the square root of 2 correct to five decimal places.

#Indian mathematical innovations had a profound effect on neighboring cultures. Trigonometry and analemma (a system of ways to reduce problems in three dimensions to a plane), for instance, greatly influenced Islamic astronomy and its heirs in western Europe.

#Aryabhata conceptualized the orbits of the planets as ellipses, a thousand years before Kepler reluctantly (he originally preferred circles) came to the same conclusion.

#Indian theorists posited that atoms combine to form aggregates, which then make up all manifestations of physical matter. The Jainist atom came in two opposing kinds—"snighda, positive or soft, and ruksha, negative or rough"—which combined, an idea foreshadowing the modern idea of ionic bonding.

Lost Discoveries : The Ancient Roots of Modern Science--from the Babylonians to the Maya can be found here: http://rapidshare.com/files/68983411/120501003.rar
Or for those of you who do not like to feel ‘ethically impugned’ here: Amazon.com

Thane Restaurants Review 1 - Fishland

2008-06-14T12:02:00.001+05:30

Starters

Name: Fishland

Address: Near Pratap Cinema, Opp. Thane Janata Sahakari Bank, Khopat

Tel. No.: 25474949/25479550

A/C-NonA/C: Both

Home Delivery: Yes

Mode of payment: Ticket Restaurant & SodexHo accepted

Main Course

Food: Fishland – now don’t be led astray by that misnomer – this is not a restaurant that earns its bread and butter solely through its fish (though the fish dishes are simply divine). It specializes in every kind of non-vegetarian Malvani food. I have even, on occasion, seen people come here for complete vegetarian meals; though why anyone would wish to do so is absolutely beyond my reckoning. While the vegetarian dishes may or may not be anything special, the non-veg dishes certainly are. For one, this restaurant doesn’t have a common gravy base – a philosophy that permeates many other restaurants I’ve visited. What this means is that almost every dish you order has its own distinct taste. And if you happen to be a malvani connoisseur you can ask the waiters to prepare the dish just the way you like it - most of the times the chef will be kind enough to oblige. Do keep in mind however that this is at best an informal arrangement and is by no means a standard service.

Recommended Dishes: Bheja Fry (masala fry not oil fry), Surmai (both steamed and pan fried), Sea Food Combination, Sp. Crab Soup & Sol Kadi

Ambience: A medium sized hotel, Fishland is indistinguishable from the many restaurants that dot Thane’s bylanes. The tables are dominated by middle and upper middle class families. There is a separate A/C section that has slightly more comfortable seating however be warned that the A/C prices are quite high. Most hotels charge somewhere between a 10-15% premium in their A/C menu, however Fishland sometimes has a 40% difference between A/C & non A/C prices!!!

Service: First time visitors will probably find the service a bit cold but don’t worry, it gets much better. The more you engage with the waiters the better the service gets and there is a very high differential between the service levels provided to infrequent visitors and regulars.

Prices: Reasonable to slightly on the higher side. Take care to confirm the prices while ordering dishes which have ‘rate as per size’ mentioned on the menu. Some of the crab dishes for instance can end up seriously denting your wallet. Quantities across all dishes are quite reasonable.

Thanda

Closing Comments: Must visit for non-veg lovers. This is however a foodie’s joint. Ambience lovers should look elsewhere (maybe to the upcoming 2^nd review in this series).

The Book Lover's List

2008-06-13T10:30:00.000+05:30

Britain's librarians recently nominated Harper Lee's To Kill a Mocking Bird as the book ‘every adult should read before they die’. These are probably the same people who put Citizen Kane in the ‘movies every adult should see before they die’. American Pie did not make it to that list; probably because there is a very remote possibility of any ‘adult’ in our generation giving up the ghost who hasn’t seen the movie already.

I’m a voracious reader and a huge movie buff and yet the significance of the books and movies that make it to these lists are often lost on me. Apparently these are targeted at an audience with more refined tastes, people who like ‘layered’ stories and ‘multidimensional’ characters. But what about people with more of a, should I say, pedestrian taste? This lobby has long clamoured for a list of must read books that just have a great story to tell. If there are any deeper insights into the human psyche or gritty social commentary, its incidental and always secondary to the primary purpose of the book, which is to entertain and enthral its readers; to take the readers away, for whatever brief period, to a land where they can close their eyes and rest their weary heads while the soothing voice of the author spins an epic yarn of heroic men, determined women and resourceful kids pitted against vile monsters that threaten to consume and destroy their lives.

Well, here’s my two cents towards the eventual creation of such a list:

1. The Shining – Stephen King

2. Blood Secrets – Craig Jones

3. Boy’s Life – Robert McCammon

4. Bourne Identity – Robert Ludlum

5. Whispers – Dean Koontz

6. The Golden Rendezvous – Alistair McLean

7. The Judas Goat – Robert B. Parker

I’ll be posting reviews of these novels as and when I get time.

Of scathing reviews...

2008-06-13T10:27:00.000+05:30

Movie critics and indeed critics of any kind have had a tough break. After politicians and lawyers they are the group that probably draws the most flak from the people they serve. While movie goers often lament the personal bias inherent in such reviews, movie makers go red in the face and almost froth at the mouth pushing the those-who-can't-do-critic argument with the right amount of moral indignation.

Like Anton Ego says about critics, "We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so". For the most part, I agree. It requires hardly any effort to pile on the sarcasm and spew venom on somebody else's sweat and toil. It looks easy. It probably is reprehensible. But it most definitely, is fun to read.

Check out this review of Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (0 stars) by Roger Ebert: "The movie created a spot of controversy in February 2005. According to a story by Larry Carroll of MTV News, Rob Schneider took offense when Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times listed this year's Best Picture nominees and wrote that they were 'ignored, unloved, and turned down flat by most of the same studios that . . . bankroll hundreds of sequels, including a follow-up to Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, a film that was sadly overlooked at Oscar time because apparently nobody had the foresight to invent a category for Best Running Penis Joke Delivered by a Third-Rate Comic.'

"Schneider retaliated by attacking Goldstein in full-page ads in Daily Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. In an open letter to Goldstein, Schneider wrote: 'Well, Mr. Goldstein, I decided to do some research to find out what awards you have won. I went online and found that you have won nothing. Absolutely nothing. No journalistic awards of any kind. . . . Maybe you didn't win a Pulitzer Prize because they haven't invented a category for Best Third-Rate, Unfunny Pompous Reporter Who's Never Been Acknowledged by His Peers. . . .'

"Schneider was nominated for a 2000 Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor, but lost to Jar-Jar Binks. But Schneider is correct, and Patrick Goldstein has not yet won a Pulitzer Prize. Therefore, Goldstein is not qualified to complain that Columbia financed Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo while passing on the opportunity to participate in Million Dollar Baby, Ray, The Aviator, Sideways, and Finding Neverland. As chance would have it, I have won the Pulitzer Prize, and so I am qualified.

Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks."

And while nobody can be curt and dismissive quite like Ebert can, it's still not the best review I've read.

This one is.

Movie: Roadhouse
Synopsis: Patrick Swayze plays a bouncer who also has a degree in philosophy and...need I go on?

Author: Scoopy from Budapest
A cinema classic. Hard to believe it was made in 1989, because it includes so many details which would have been considered cliches in 1939.

Here's the idea. Before I start, I need to tell you that this takes place in the present, not in the Old West. That's important, because it's really just an old western, as you'll see when you read through the plot summary. Hint: think Shane

A powerful landowner with a savage taste for hunting gets all his kicks from his domination of a small town and all its inhabitants. Ben Gazzara plays this part.

Don't miss the scene where Gazzara sings "Shboom, shboom"!

Ben comes complete with all the movie evil accoutrements, like llama heads in his paneled den. How hard could it be to kill a llama? They are big clumsy-looking pack animals and they don't live in places where they can hide or run away. In my den, I have the heads of dairy cows. Now that's good hunting. I also enjoy hunting for Koalas. They sometimes go for hours without muscle movement, so you don't have to waste any bullets.

Only one man is prepared to challenge Big Ben. The owner of a local bar simply wants to fix up his old joint and live his life, but Gazzara's goons keep roughing up the joint and scaring off the paying customers and demanding the usual "protection" money. How to fight back? The owner of the bar just happens to know the world's greatest bouncer. Oh, and the bouncer brings along his mentor, and together they stand tall against Ben and his henchmen.

The world's greatest bouncer is Patrick Swayze, then one of the hottest properties in filmdom after his success two years earlier in "Dirty Dancing". He's a piece of work. He wears a stoic expression, perhaps because he studied the Stoics while obtaining his Ph.D. in Philosophy from NYU. He also wears expensive Armani clothing (black is his color) and drives a Mercedes. Being an itinerant and lonely bouncer cleaning up run-down Midwestern dives isn't that glamorous, but the pay must be sweet. No wonder he gave up his professorship.

Of course, his immersion in the highlights of human thought have given him the insight necessary to utter such lines as "Pain don't hurt". There will be a test on this later. I think that line probably cracked me up more than any other in film history. The previous record holder, not surprisingly, had been in a comedy, "only the singing Hitlers over here. Dancing Hitlers over there." (You film buffs know the movie). Anyway, my buds and I swaggered around for years, whenever we would see each other, and intoned "pain don't hurt". Interesting question for the philosophers amongst you. If pain don't hurt, what does? And why do they call it pain? I'll leave the answers up to you, because these "trees falling in an empty forest" questions always hurt my head. Although, interestingly enough, when my head hurts there can be no pain, because.... (Your answer here).

I told you there would be a test.

There is also an interesting fight scene. Swayze is battling a knife-wielding goon. He relieves the guy of his knife with some proven technique of ancient Zen philosophy. Confucius once wrote that while the pen is mightier that the sword, he would prefer to deliver an enemy not a witty epigram from his quill, but a swift kick in the privates from his pointed shoes.

My translation from Mandarin may be a bit inexact.

Anyway, somehow the knife mysteriously reappears in the guy's hand, and Swayze uses the exact same maneuver to taunt him and remove the knife a second time. An important lesson for us all. If you have to do a second take on a scene - why waste it?

Oh, and the back-up cast. Make room for wrestler Terry Funk and Kevin Tighe. Tighe plays a guy named Tilghman, presumably so he won't have to learn any new consonants.

Oh, and the dancing. Remember this is a forgotten town about as run-down as the mining camp in "Paint Your Wagon", but all the chicks in the bar can dance broadway schtick.

Anyway, not many movies are so bad they are good. Most bad movies are bad because they are boring. But this one is not boring for a minute. In fact, "Road House" is one of the greatest comedies ever filmed, although I don't think the filmmakers were aware of it. It is worth watching, and has a great rock 'n roll score, but I strongly suggest that you do so under the influence of mood-altering substances and in the company of like-minded goofballs.

Bottom line - ya gotta see it.

Better yet...re-read the review...its far more entertaining than the movie.