Amma is brilliant ...

My amma is brilliant too, but I am referring to the Puratchi Thalaivi here.

At the end of the assembly elections, Amma declared that she would not attend the Tamil Nadu Assembly proceedings.

Yesterday, the AIADMK MLA's (surely on her instruction) went on a rampage in the Assembly, throwing chairs et al, in response to attacks on the absent Puratchi Thalaivi from the DMK and Congress.

The speaker suspended most (all ?) of the AIADMK MLA's for the rest of this session.

And today, Amma has released a statement stating that she would start attending the Assembly from today. From today, when she will be the lone AIADMK MLA, where she will become the focal point of attack for the ruling party - Which will enable her to play the maryred/wronged woman (a role perfected through her film career), and set the stage for ADMK comebacks in the by-elections, further setting the stage for an ADMK comeback in 2010 (or earlier).

Lok Paritran: The end of an era ;-)

Lok Paritran, a party with seven candidates in the recent elections, has split !

3 of the candidates have alleged caste-based discrimination and left the party to form their own splinter group. Hmm, welcome to the real world, guys.

The real world where Iraq needs Saddam Hussein to stay intact ...

I am not a supporter of the current political system by any means - But I am confident that its the best real alternative available today.

Incongruencies

Incongruencies are one of the things that make life so special and interesting !

Dissimilarities within a couple, palaces in the midst of ruins, a temple in the midst of a "Muslim Area" and so on ...

On a lighter vein though, I find it hilarious to see drivers and truck loaders wearing t-shirts with logos of bands like Nirvana, or with witticisms like "I am with Stupid ---->" or Tantra-isms about Hitler !

I think there is an amazing scope for a photo-blog with just pictures of folks in incongruent clothing - Old women in minis, drivers in Ralph Lauren and sometimes just the extreme unsuitability of a face to a certain kind of clothing.

The "me too" syndrome

Google is the best search engine. Period.

And that would have been the start and end of a glorious internet story, was it not for Wall Street and its perpetual greed for higher revenues and profits even at the cost of sacrificing what is core to the business.

Google seems to have fallen prey to what must be one of the most desirable of evils, over-capitalization. Under-capitalization can cause a great deal of pain and angst to the promoters, but then so can over-capitalization. When you have more money that you know what to do with, you lose your focus, forget your roots and make flashy decisions.

Google's search and advertising business is great. But, in this situation of over-capitalization, Google is dumping money into second-rate efforts on multiple fronts - It is becoming the generalist in an era where access to specialists is enabled, economically through the internet, the very technology that made Google, Google.

Mail - Yahoo wins
Chat - MSN/Yahoo wins
Directions - Mapquest wins
Groups - Yahoo wins
Pictures - Snapfish/Epson wins
and so on .....

Its going to be interesting to see if the power of "centralized services" gives Google the edge over these above services that are clearly superior to its own equivalents.

Dog Horn

People in Chennai have grown immune to conventional horns. I think that its simply because of the feeling that "If the guy behind me hits the horn, it probably means he has seen me, and won't kill me" !

I was discussing with my fiancee today morning, about the need to have a "special horn" that you would use when you have an emergency situation (such as heading towards an imminent crash unless the other guy moves ...)

I personally would like a "dog horn" that would have a loud barking sound ...

(Ok, this was a lot funnier when I said it out aloud)

Retardation ....

I was shocked to read this article on the front page of the Indian Express today - "Rape accused can be convicted on the sole testimony of victim: Supreme Court".

Have these guys gone absolutely bonkers ?? Apparently, if a person is accused of rape, they can be convicted on the sole testimony of the alleged victim, even if there is no medical evidence of rape.

I understand that it must be painful for a victim to subject herself to a physical examination soon after the assault, but I just dumbfounded that the Supreme Court has adopted a position so diametrically opposite the adage "Innocent until proven guilty".

Human Resources

I read a statistic recently that just blew my mind !

78% of Satyam Computers' expenses is on salaries, while the comparable number for Reliance is around 0.5% !!

Which is kinda funny to me, because IT is always considered to be the knowledge based, high-tech industry - But the utilization of human beings/resources is so poor !

In other words, Reliance can use one person to generate 156 times the amount of revenue that Satyam can with the same person. Isn't that what the knowledge economy is all about - The ability to use machines in an efficient manner ? .... So, effectively Reliance' billing rate or revenue/employee is about $4,368 per hour against $28 or so for Satyam (not sure about this number)

Of course, a lot of human-intensive designing/programming must have gone into developing the processes/systems that are used in the back-end to reduce Reliance's dependence on human capital ....

Good times, and bad.

I have often suspected that all of our superstitions today, especially around "nalla neram" and "nalla naal" (Auspicious times and dates) are misplaced and irrelevant in today's life.

Take the example of the Tamil month of Aadi, which is considered extremely inauspicious for weddings and most other occasions. This never made sense to me, but I always figured that there must have been some good reason for it in the past, and now, we continued to consider Aadi inauspicious.

Today, my auditor explained why Aadi was/is considered inauspicious. Apparently, people did not want couples to get married in Aadi as there was a high probability that their first kid would be born, 10 months later, in the rainy season - An inconvenient time to give birth when all we had was mud houses.

However, in today's world of contraception and cool things like brick & cement homes, this is totally irrelevant. I am sure all of the customs that bog down Hinduism are similar to this. I would love to hear of any more that you guys know of.

Food Service on Planes

In the US, airlines were sent deep into the red by 9/11 and the intense competition immediately preceding it. Since then, there have been drastic cuts in the standard services offered to flyers. On most airlines, all you get is a cola and some pretzels. Also, most airlines have concentrated their fleet expansions on the smaller turbo-prop aircraft.

Everytime I am on one of these tiny aircraft (the CRJ series or the EMB series especially), the in-flight service is a painful process with the hostess hitting atleast a dozen people's elbows and the rest-room being rendered off-limits for most of the flight's duration. And of course, things are not much better with the S-80's or 737's that most domestic American Airlines flights use.

So, I thought of this cool concept - What if there could be a drinks/food trolley that could be rolled down the length of the cabin on a bar attached to one of the sides of the plane. The air hostess would reach up to get colas, ice et al, and the trolley would be out of the way of passengers and the aisles would not be blocked either.

What do you guys think ? Should I patent this ;-)

Rang de Basanti

I finally watched the movie, and after all of the hype surrounding it, I was disappointed at its incredible lack of a cohesive message.

And, why in heavens name does death have to be glamorized so much ? There is nothing glamorous about death, it is fast, it is permanent and it is gory.

Can we please not have Madhavan and other jokers like him smiling (disclosure: I detest Madhavan !) when they are getting mowed down by bullets ? Bhagat Singh and Azad were great patriots, that were part of a force that ignited a chain of events that lead to India's independence.

However, I guarantee that not once would they have undervalued the values of their own lives. They had a passion, they had a mission and they would do anything to do it, but they were never going to be "happy to die" for the country. Death in that process has to be a corollary (if necessary), and not a necessary step in the path to an end, as was portrayed in Rang de Basanti.

I dont think I have done a good job of communicating my actual thoughts in this post, but maybe they are just untranscribable (if there is such a word).

Captain !

Its amazing, but exit polls show that the beloved "Captain" is likely to collect about 10% of the Tamil Nadu vote. He is unlikely to win any seats this time around, but the fact that 10% of the population wants him to be CM, as against 1% for MK Stalin is interesting. (MK was at 41% and Amma was at 35%)

I think Captain might very well merge his party with the DMK and supplant Stalin as the successor to the DMK throne. The folks within the party cannot possibly be happy to serve under Stalin, the Dravidian equivalent of Prince Charles ! Of course, Captain is the equivalent of a perpetually drunk Bangaru Laxman :-)

However, after contrasting the DMK/ADMK manifestos with the Captain's (mostly gleaned from the movie Ramanna that I watched on a bus), it is truly sad that his made more sense !

And for those who have not seen the Captain's mug, scroll down for a rare treat !

Election Promises

Its election time in Tamil Nadu and political parties are pulling out all the stops in their efforts to attract voters.

Most of the parties seem to have bought loads of ad-time on the local FM Channel, Radio Mirchi. The other FM channel, Suryan FM is owned by the DMK family of course.

I do not own a TV and so I don't know what sort of ads are airing on the various channels, but from what I have heard on the radio, this is what I have gleaned:

Free Color TV from the DMK (More subscribers for Sun TV !)
Free Gold for soon to be married women's thali's (Mangalsutra) from the ADMK
Free cow (!) from Vijaykanth's party (MMMMDMK - Or something like that)
A trip back to the Vedic times (with Kings, 90% infant mortality and untouchability) - Lok Paritran

I wonder if my fiance would qualify for the free gold ? I can't help it ! Once a Nadar, always a Nadar.

Lok Paritran

The Lok Paritran party has been getting a lot of good press recently. Chenthil pointed out some time back the party's obsession with taking India back to the "Vedic Times". Rubbish, that is. More untouchability all around sound good ?

And I think Lok Paritran is a fantastic concept and all, but these guys really need to start at the ward councillor level and work their way up. Being an MLA straight away is going to be to much for them to handle, I would think.

Real Estate Prices in Chennai ...

Real Estate prices in Chennai and its surrounding regions are just absolutely insane (as everyone knows). And there are conflicting opinions out there on two things:

1. Whether there is a bubble.
2. If there is, is it about to burst.

I have been looking for some office space in Chennai for the fast few days, and I have been quoted some crazy prices. But, you know what, I think I see some softness in the market. Property owners do not seem to be completely confident about their ability to rent out their space and are coming down to below-market prices fairly quickly.

I am going to go out on a limb here and say something here, and this could be absolutely far off the mark (And I was far off the mark when I thought the Sensex would peak at 9,000), but I think that Chennai has reached the peak price levels and at any higher levels, people are going to start moving away.

Another indication is the insistence on the part of quite a few of the property owners that they wanted a 3 year contract with fixed pricing - Which is something they would insist on only if they believed that rates would stagnate, fall or rise moderately. Atleast that is my experience with my work in Procurement.

Anyway, time will tell and until then, I am going to have to pay rates almost as high as Raleigh, North Carolina for inferior properties. And if office space is costlier, so is residential space, and that will consequently, indirectly increase the cost per employee.

And there is this guy I heard about, who is moving his operations from Chennai to Port Blair :-)