Cyber Language

Here are some cyber language which could go for cybernetics. Well, almost.I hear this everyday in the train to work when crushed from all sides and looking at the roof of the train and panting for breath, I can do no more than listen.

Sending emails:

Put email
Give email
Send email
Take email

Copying to a CD:

Burn CD
Put CD
Cut CD

Printing a file:

Send to print
Copy to print
Take out print.

Thinking something along these lines, are you? Then comment. You know that thing about great minds thinking alike.

Still in a Kerala State of Mind

Yesterday's post (which appears below) was written from a deep despondent state. I wasn't myself. So, please ignore the post. I have written it when I feeling particularly low. After all, I am here amn't I? Back to blogging.

Here's a picture I clicked of my brother-in-law's house in Kerala, which is a beautiful one, surrounded by abundant greenery, sort of a trade mark of Kerala. (Twitterers must have already seen this, in which case, sorry!) Though rains hadn't come the greenery is omnipresent. I am still in a daze after my visit, which is usual. The things I heard, experienced there overshadow me and my mind goes blank when I am back to Bombay. Will take some more time to get into the groove of the big bad city. So, be patient, till I get this out of my system.

A Little Analysis of My Social Media (Writing) Position

Now that I have cut down on Facebook and twitter, I find myself a stranger wandering these forbidden domains (employers have blocked them). I devote only 15 minutes to write replies to comments. I have felt a corresponding fall in the number of comments on my statuses also. Confess I am not that popular on networks. They are good media to catch up with friends, if you are the friendly and popular type. Somehow I have a feeling it hasn't worked for me. Though I have friends in countries far and wide I feel there is no sincereity in their frienships. They say "Hi" if only I say "Hi." I am amazed to find that overnight my account on ryze.com has come to a standstill because I am not active there. Likewise my Orkut account. If you don't wish or write an update, they don't. They have become like modern relationships - one based on what one can grab, for grabbing's sake.

So I thought a little analysis is in order. I social media worth it in terms of the time and effort I expend on it. Is giving me return on investment, or, is it eating away time I should divert to other productive activities? We live in an age of mutiple media. The following is my social media presence as of date:

Facebook  : 1300 friends

FB Page   : 270 friends

Twitter  : 270 friends

Ryze      : 300 friends

Linked in : 300 friends

Digg      : 200 friends

Stumble   : 100 friends

orkut     : 200 friends

Feedburn  : 200 friends

Total     :3,140 friends. Not bad I suppose. There are more, which are minor networks.

I confess I am a bit of an agressive networker on these media becuase basically I was focussing on creating an audience for my writing. I have sent requests to writers and people who may be interested in writing and willingly added whoever requesed for a membership, unless the person looks like he could be trouble. I am in searth of an audience for my writing. And my writing is for the most part experimental, sort of muscle-flexing-exercises so that I could discover a voice in the middle of my musings and maybe mature as old wine. 

Is it happening? I don't know. But I will remain in this space, come what may.

How Being an Anthropologist Helped Amitav Ghosh...

In this article, one of my favorite authors Amitav Ghosh says how his Doctorate (PhD) in social anthropology helped him in his writing. It's a subject close to my heart. I wish. I wish.

I remember about twenty years back an anthropologist had come to live in Artist Village where I live. One day after work I shared an autorickshaw with her (since autorickshaws were rare in those days). She said living here was "very rough". She didn't say "tough" she said "rough." It was a rough place to live in those days: there were no proper internal roads (I wrote letters and got this done), for mail we had to go to the post office and sift through the entire village's mail (I wrote to the Postmaster General and got mail delivery started), electricity and water supply played truant for days and once, for a week (I couldn't do much in this regard).

Such was life in Artist Village in those days. Nowadays life is - hopefully - better, but, still, I can't be a dispassionate judge. I live too much near it to judge. Architects have admired the design by Charles Correa, but people living there have had to face hardships because of the poor execution. The result: we all broke down the old structures and built our houses anew with multiple floors. They may look like concrete monstrosities compared to the graceful old ones. One learns to adapt and go along.

I have digressed. I have waffled.

I have often wondered why people in Bombay haven't integrated, a good anthropological question. Why Bombay, why haven't people of India integrated. In Artist Village the Malayalis were the first to start a local Malayali association. This association has had its share of fights, coups, coup d'etat, and stayed together, managed to, rather. The Bengalis started their own association, the Punjabis their own. Though we all lived in Belapur we were a diverse and compartmentalised lot, with very little interaction with other people. A good anthropological question that begs an answer.

Lauren Beukes Wins Arthur Clark Award for Book Zoo City

Zoo City written by South African writer Lauren Beukes has won the UK's Arthur Clark prize according to this article in Guardian blogs. Zoo City is a story set in Johannesburg and beat many other science fiction writers (including one of her constant nemesis Ian McDonald) to win the award. Speaking at the award ceremony Beukes said, excerpt:

"I had a speech prepared and it was curse you McDonald," she said. South Africa, is an "an incredible place to live ... and write about", she added. "It's really where science fiction is. It's in the developing world, it's first world, it's third world – the way we use technology is different to the way it's used elsewhere. This book is about magic and technology and it's very special to be here."

Hm. First world and third world in one. Sounds familiar? Applies to India, too, I guess.

Howlarious! Trivia: A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.

This is sure to make you howl! I did! I got this from Manjula Narayan who got it from Ranvir S. Just look for a pun, or, better still make an anagram. Then it strikes you as very original.The pleasure is mine, er, of Manjula and Ranvir, too.

Did you hear about the glass blower who accidentally inhaled? Now he's got a pane in his stomach.

To write with a broken pencil is pointless.

When fish are in schools they sometimes take debate.

A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months.

When the smog lifts in Los Angeles , U.C.L.A.

The professor discovered that her theory of earthquakes was on shaky ground.

The batteries were given out free of charge.

A dentist and a manicurist married. They fought tooth and nail.

A will is a dead giveaway.

If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.

With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.

Show me a piano falling down a mineshaft and I'll show you A-flat miner.

You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.

Local Area Network in Australia : The LAN down under.

A boiled egg is hard to beat.

When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.

Police were called to a day care where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.

Did you hear about the fellow whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right now.

If you take a laptop computer for a run you could jog your memory.

A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.

In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your Count that votes.

When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.

He had a photographic memory which was never developed.

Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.

Acupuncture: a jab well done.

The Bombay Hustle - God, What They Sell, and All

I am back to Bombay (scamland) and back to hustling. Not me. The others. Afterall, it is the season for scams. And, death. A man I knew, who lived in the neighbourhood died. Two people, relations of relations died when I was in Kerala.

I don't know how they - the hustlers - came to know I am back. There are these endless calls that make me want to bash my mobile device against the nearest wall. Since I work in the marketing department there are advertising agencies looking for a client, publication looking for advertisements, outdoor advertising contractors looking for new business. I think they all have dedicated call centres to disturb me throughout the day. I swear. I receive so many calls that I don't have time to work. I get behind on my schedule. Bosses get mad at me.

Business is done this way, my friend Dhansukhbhai Jethalal Shah assures me. They need to promote aggressively to survive, otherwise they will fail. Either grow or die. Every new business fails in the first five years of operation.

The New Kind of Ad-hoc-ism

I see a peculiar kind of ad-hoc-ism here. Businesses these days don't have the patience to document like they used to. Nobody files papers. The idea of these hotshot-management-types-who-quit-at-the-drop-of-a-hat is to quit before records are asked for from people who care about documentation. They are aggressive in pursuing marketing and sales targets and depart leaving a mess in their wake. The whole organisation suffers and a whole lot of effort goes down the drain. This is the new kind of ad-hoc-ism.

EMAIL HUSTLING

There are endless hustling on email too. They fall into the following categories (I like to categorise things, you know).

The Nigerian Scam

These scams operate from close by (mostly by Nigerian illegal immigrants), though they claim to have accounts in Nigeria. The emails are badly written (which is your cue to ignore them), badly punctuated, giving off whiffs of scams. But some people fall for the millions offered if you just send your address and your bank account number. They just need a few thousand dollars as a processing fee before they transfer the millions to your account. If you agree, you can say goodbye to this processing fee. Your processing fee is their revenue. Like a dog that has been kicked, you sit and nurse your wounds and are reluctant to tell anyone about the trauma you went through.

The Beautiful Young Girl Scam

This scam could have been effective when I was a youth and still unmarried. What can it do when I am getting on in age and experience? So how do I respond to a girl who is beautiful, simple, god-fearing, fun-loving, etc. She sends her picture also. But everything is so suspect that you wonder how people fall for these scams. Soon as they know your bank balance and financial position, they go after your money. Don't believe the siren who sends pictures and say they love your wrinkled mug shots. Hm.

The Au Pair Scam

 Of this scam I have written before here.

The Multi-level Marketing Scam

I have expounded, waffled about this here. (Same link as above.)

Just mentioning it here so that you are aware.

Books on Our Shelf We Would Like to Read, Had We the Time

How many books do we have on our shelves waiting to be read? Many I suppose. Me too. Mea culpa. I have a shelf full of the most desirable books I would like to read, if I have the time.

 

So agrees Italian writer, philosopher and critic Umberto Eco in this piece in Guardian.

 

"And yet I've a fairly accurate notion of what I haven't read. I have to admit that I only read War and Peace when I was 40. But I knew the basics before then. The Mahabharata – I've never read that, despite owning three editions in different languages. Who has actually read the Kama Sutra? And yet everyone talks about it, and some practise it too. So we can see that the world is full of books that we haven't read, but that we know pretty well."

More on the Mundu!

Continuing my saga on the Mundu. I guess, by now it is obvious that the Mundu has no competition as far expressing moods are concerned. The trouser doesn't come near it in self-expression. The various moods can only be described as multifarious. Disclaimer: all in jest, not to be taken seriously, and pliss to be kind to a writer of droll humour. I tried wearing a Mundu only on this trip to Kerala and loved it. From now on I will be a die-hard promoter of the Mundu, it's brand ambassador, so to speak.

Mundu held at both ends parted in the middle

It's (sheesh!) the husband's invitation to the wife to... you know what. Since the man wears colourful lungis (the casual version of Mundu) at home the mood is already set.

Mundu's hem held from behind while walking

This is a relaxed Malayali, taking it easy and enjoying the verdant scenery as he walks around his naturally-bless state of Kerala. There's nothing like a relaxed Malayali (I am one!), there's humour in every word, slapstick in every action (see Malayalam movies), laughter in every second (as I am now, I hope!).

Mundu worn with nothing above it.

This is the Kerala version of the Varanasi one where naked sadhus dive into the Ganga with only a loin cloth. A Malayali looks imposing with his rippling muscles, his dark well-oiled hair, and dark complexion. His skin virtually shines. Look how he just coruscates in the shine of freshly-applied coconut oil.

This is the best expression I can think of in this collection of trivia. Do comment, please!

Police Superintendent in Kerala Allegedly Gives Contract to Kill Journalist

I am just back from Kerala and here's something else in today's papers - which I scanned on the flight to Bombay - which made me feel weird. Just boggled the mind. I couldn't believe it as I read the news. I know strange things happen in this world, but when was the last time a top official of the police hired a lowly contract killer to  kill a journalist for publishing a story. What's weird is also the fact of how the state is governed by dictats of the police and how this indicates a malady which cannot be dismissed so easily. I think it is the first time such a case is being reported. Pardon my weak memory if it isn't.

In Kerala a contract to kill is given to a gang called a "Quotation Sangham." The term means what it implies. The gang then gives a quotation for carrying out the job, as in any contracts. I think (or, have a feeling) that there is a contract and things are laid down, too. If the need is to maim then they break a leg (a different rate applies), if the aim is to just warn (here, too, a different rate applies). If the aim is to slap a person in public, yes, it can be done, at a separate rate. So the gang gives a quotation and the money is handed over. It's a sick practise and it sickens me to even think about it.  

A policeman, a deputy superintendent of police, according to the case, hired a contract killer to murder a journalist. Yes. DySP Santosh Nair has been arrested allegedly for attacking journalist Unnithan of the newspaper Matrubhumi. Unnithan's fault is that he published a report about Nair attending a party hosted by a liquor baron.

Things must have got rather hot and wild there, as it does most often in parties by the liquor barons.

If the police is too sensitive about being seen at parties thrown by liquor barons, well, the action to be taken is simple enough. Stop attending these parties. Well Mr. Policeman you have been caught in the act. So there!