Yantrakaal

A book that falls short of my expectations. Perhaps my expectations were too high or that of the reviewers who had fanned my interest were too low or perhaps this is the benchmark of current Indian English literature .... you could look at it in any which way you choose. This is a book crafted in a workshop, not created in the crucible of imagination or ecstasy. It is meticulous no doubt, with the stamp of scholarship of someone who has had the luxury of spending a lot of time to do research on (a) the geographics and demographics of the Tide Country ( aka the Sundarbans ) and (b) the behavioural characteristics of the river dolphin. Good topics of research no doubt but hey I am interested in a reading novel, not a thesis. Coming down to the novel itself ....it is nice no doubt. Not much of a plot but more of a framework that the author needed to hang his twin theses on ! I like Fokir for his rustic simplicity but would have been happier if he could have raised himself out his mun...

But for the world-wide-web, the biggest innovation that the world has seen in the field of communications has been the ubiquitous cell-phone. From being a humble device to talk from the field, it has enlarged itself -- functionally -- to accomodate a diverse range of facilities : PDA, organiser, camera, music, web access .... and no one knows what next. However there is one aspect of the cellphone that is very troublesome : its need to balance size with functionality. As functionality increased, size increased and then technology advanced to bring the size back .... but there is a limit that is imposed not by technology but by human ability. The real pain is the size of the screen. How I wish I could not only browse the web but also open and READ files ... but to do so I would have to squint and strain and in the end it is simply not worth the trouble. So here are my suggestions for tackling this problem. 1] Delink the display ( that needs to be large ) from the 'machine...

There was an Engineer (Uncle SAM) working for Enron and taking a cool pay packet of US$ 10,000 per month. The work was hectic, even if it was for 8 hours per day for 5 days a week. He thought for a while and found out an Indian Engineer of similar profile in Bangalore, and recruited him to do his work for Rs 10,000 per month, and got all his work done by this person whom he paid from his salary (US$ 250). Thus, he made a cool take home of US$ 9750 per month and had all his time to play golf. He then got greedy, and took up yet another job with EDS (moonlighting?) for US$ 10,000 per month and subcontracted another Indian from Bangalore (using employee referral of the first Indian he employed in Bangalore), at the same salary of Rs 10,000 per month. This enabled him to play golf and earn US$ 19,500 per month. He continued this until one day, he realized that he had deployed hundreds of Indians from Bangalore on hundreds of his jobs and he made millions of dollars.......the rest is histor...

I struggled through this novel because it was referred to me as an introduction to what life in an IIT is all about and ofcourse the subject of IIT is always interesting to me. Unfortunately I came away with a dim, dark view of what I have always considered to have been the best part of my life. The book is a crashing bore, there is neither action, nor fun let alone anything profound and sometimes I wonder why publishers print such books and why readers buy them. I suppose publishers have to publish that is their raison d'etre. Coming round to the book itself, the protagonists of the novel Hari, Alok and Ryan somehow managed to spend four years in IIT without finding ANYTHING of any value. The teachers are bad, the courses are bad, the food is bad .. their friends ( other than the trio that is) are bad. Everything is bad. What utter nonsense. Unless things have changed dramatically since I left KGP (in 1985) or unless IIT-D is significantly different from the other IITs ... I am le...

You may be puzzled at the title of this blog so let me explain. Yesterday we were in Lolegaon where the temperature was a cool 13 Celsius when we started on the journey home. 9 hours later we were in Calcutta, via Siliguri & Bagdogra and the temperature was a sizzling 39 Celsius. That was indeed a very steep gradient indeed. Actually we had a very nice vacation in the hills. We took off last Saturday on the Uttar Banga Express, arrived at New Jalpaiguri next morning and took a Maruti van to Lava. Next we changed into a 4WD Jeep and climbed all the way up to Rishap. This is a rather primitive place but the service that we received at Pal-babu's Tourist Centre was fabulous. So was the room with the view (a rather cloudy view, though) and the overall ambience of the place. Best of course was the huge variety of exotic flowers that grow naturally there. After two nights in the quiet tranquility of Rishap we travelled to Gumbadara, a tiny village between Lava and Lolegaon with ...

Its Presence of mind and the right answer at right time that matters!! Q.How can you drop a raw egg onto a concrete floor without cracking it? A. Concrete floors are very hard to crack! (UPSC Topper) Q.If it took eight men ten hours to build a wall, how long would it take four men to build it? A. No time at all it is already built. (UPSC 23 Rank Opted for IFS) Q.If you had three apples and four oranges in one hand and four apples and three oranges in the other hand, what would you have? A. Very large hands.(Good one) (UPSC 11 Rank Opted for IPS) Q. How can you lift an elephant with one hand? A. It is not a problem, since you will never find an elephant with one hand. (UPSC Rank 14) Q. How can a man go eight days without sleep? A. No Probs , He sleeps at night. (UPSC IAS Rank 98) Q. If you throw a red stone into the blue sea what it will become? A. It will Wet or Sink as simple as that. (UPSC IAS Rank 2) Q. What looks like half apple ? A : The other half. (UPSC - IAS Topper Q. What can ...

Many of you would be aware that the two halves of the human brain have two widely different functions. The left half of the brain is used to handle the rational, analytical stuff : mathematics, planning, organization, while the right brain is engaged with emotional and instinctive tasks like arts, music, love and other passionate matters. Human beings also fall into these broad categories. Some are methodical, rational and people like these end up as scientists and administrators. The other category end up as artists, musicians and finally as mystics. What characterizes the second group from the first is that the latter are more often interested in the result and not the process of arriving at the result. They know ‘what’ but not quite sure of ‘why’ or ‘how’. Instinctively, they know whether something is good or bad but would not be able to explain why. On the other hand, the former are extremely insistent on reason and proofs. They refuse to accept anything that cannot ...