Looking into the horizon

Taramani - confused urbanization!

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Sun, 20 Aug 2017 07:10:00 +0000

Director Ram prefaces Taramani as a knot of unconnected events and so may be meaningless. (மொட்டைத் தலைக்கும் முழங்காலுக்கும் முடிச்சு). The film gets into extremes of almost everything. It portrays the relationship of a street dweller with an upper middle class single mother. It tries to portrays the lights of feminism amidst societal norms. Money gets drawn parallel to honesty. Opportunism is brought in against sincerity. Globalisation versus anti-globalization and self sufficiency. It is a kind of overkill and problem gets widenend just because everything is a conflict. Everything gets pardoned and forgiven and you are at peace.

A popular phrase in literary appreciation is "Let the story travel by itself. Let the characters speak!". The problem with Ram's films is; he will be seen throughout the film. It's not just traces, sometimes he gets over the top. In Taramani, he himself acknowledges that and passes on comments and directs the audience (he compares this with facebook\twitter status messages). If the director of a film in its course; comments at the response of audience like "If you haven't questioned globalization, don't question this character!", it is indeed an insult to the audience. If an insult is Ram's primary intention, it is fine. If he aims at questioning the (globalization) ideology of viewers, then he should revisit his theories of a creative art. The experience of Taramani gets established in the preface itself. We will have to experience a satsang or gospel (or a bit of both since the protagonist is an Anglo Indian) except for the fact that you are force fed with life lessons than religious lessons.

A feminist should live on her own. A cliché from Balachander days is also taken over in Taramani. Feminism has been treated differently in the past two decades. We have seen Kalyana Agathigal, Magalir mattum, Marupadiyum, 16 vayathinile etc. There is a subtle difference between feminism and misandry. Unfortunately all the feminist films try to portray hatred for men rather than feminism. If you are a woman and earn 80K/month; a man is dependent on you and on a tussle if you can throw him out of the house (saying I am feeding you), what is the kind of feminism you are trying to disclose? You just go on and prove that the control or fight over couples should be mostly on financial front. There is an interesting character in Taramani; a cop's wife. She gets ill treated by her husband. She tries to get over the trauma via books. She reads "Asuran" which is all about injustice to a totem. So, even literally, you are not getting over the hatred. It's just confirmation bias!

The urban globalized world is in a transformation. You get confused with a lot of principles. The protagonist's friend goes to a pub, dances with other men when her husband watches her dancing. The friend comments about her husband, "you just have to throw biscuits at these dogs at the right time". There is a high class lady, who wants to sleep with a stranger, loses her wedding ring. She sleeps with the police commissioner for getting the ring back! It's all Ram Ram!! No character gets committed to a relationship. In the idea of breaking the stereotypes, all the goodness of the conventional wisdom gets totally erased. In that sense, it is a regressive movie to larger extent.

Taramani is verbally angry at urbanization and birds losing their habitat. Taramani tries to bring out negative shades of urban lives and their insecurities. Taramani disguises itself as a feminist art. Those said and done, dialogues stand out and are emotional. Andrea's best performance till date. Barnabas and his forgiveness add the grace and ray of hope. Though it may seem as a film for matured audience, Taramani just tries to tie a knot between extremes of unconnected entities; which for all its practical difficulties is very rare. Taramani is just a gooey film with a confused core!

Jesus vs Satan- Vikram-Vedha

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 11:11:00 +0000

There is a theological belief that says Jesus was not of flesh. Gnosticism tries to substantiate that belief and says; since Jesus was not of flesh, he didn't die in the cross. It was indeed Simon of the cyrene who got crucified for Jesus. I am not an advocate of any of these beliefs but what is enthralling is all these stories gives you questions which shakes you. If you are questioned "If Gandhi's father was Gandhi? Or Is Godse's son a Godse?", then you are in the never ending tale of Good vs Bad or God vs Devil. This goes on from Generation to generation. From childhood, we might have heard a lot of stories on moral values and principles. One of the intriguing things in listening all those stories is; how to attain the wisdom to decide between good vs bad. Some of the stories end with a verdict so you need not really bother about the process of deciding the evil. The ambulimama stories of Vikramadhithan-Vedaal never end with a verdict. They always question you. So, the process of judging\comprehending\concluding is left to you. Vikram-vedha gives you the same experience in big screen; of questioning yourself with few tales and lot of questions. Most importantly, you enjoy it a lot like all the granny stories. The canvas is big and you could see lot of colors. The story tellers or the grannies are enamoring and very wise to make you think.

Vikram-vedha has the x-factor in it because the art of story-telling is at its finesse. Surprisingly, it is both deductive and detective. If it is an investigative story where you are searching something , it is not the object that gets found or the result you achieve it is all about the ride. It is the hermeneutics that gives you the satisfaction. There are stories that cancel themselves. A good example would be Yuvan's "Naankavuthu Kanavu" (Fourth dream) in Tamil. One common thing about such stories is that they switch back and forth between time. They create a world in your mind and bring you back to your senses. They question you how that world was. Then they will tell you another tale and then ask questions. Sometimes it will be tales within tales. The idea is just to engross you and present you the alternate realism. Then they will connect the dots within all these tales slowly revealing the canvass. The devil will be in the details. Exactly, what Vikram-Vedha does to you.

Madhavan plays the role of Vikram. Straight as an arrow cop, who considers himself having the wisdom of seeing right and wrong. Its zero or one for him and so he is in peace. Enters, Vijay Sethupathi, Vedha@Vedaal, who questions Vikram's wisdom. Vikram slowly realises that its not always black or white and truth gets hidden somewhere in between. Vijay Sethupathi scores easily. Madhavan is good but somehow reminds me of a grown-up Anbarasu of Anbe Sivam times. He is spontaneous, charming, good and straight. In many aspects, we as audience are in the world of Vikram. We associate ourselves to his character. Vedha gets him into a ride. Vedha knows the truth. He asks you tough questions. Slowly, you acknowledge that Vedha has a superior intellect. You stick out to him. You listen to him. He mocks you, burdens you sitting at your back. He bedevils you with ease and poise. Vijay Sethupathy scores easily because of his usual cool, calm way of living the character. Vijay Sethupathy easily strikes a chord because he had arrived and mastered the art of matching the traits of a character with dialogue delivery, looks and walk. Simple copybook approach. In the world of tamil cinema, where the likes of Kamalahasan doing a lot at the age of 60+ to live a character, Vijay Sethpuathy does it with real ease. May be the ease is what stands apart!

Metaphors and images from folklores and mythologies are spread over the film including the title. There is this character called Simon, who just lives as gnostics' belief. He has a son named Alex. He was made to carry the cross. He is confused, he can't bear it and he can't refuse it. He just falls back to the lord. A bullet abandoned by Vikram's father, gets the much need chain sprocket from Vedha just like the clues. Vedha has a brother whom Vedha protects a lot and thus loses him. He is the crux of the story and nicknamed as pulli. A money minded kid Chandra grows up exactly as she was earlier. Vikram's wife is another tool in the tale. She plays an advocate. Advocate and cop inside same house creates lot of dilemmas in the personal and professional front.

Dialogues are crisp and sharp. There are notoriously comical dialogues in Orampo. Pushkar and Gayathri the director couple are really good at dialogues. My urge to watch the film is mainly due to the dialogues of Orampo. A cop with pride says that his to be brother-in-law is an engineer. Vikram responds "What is the pride being an engineer?". His wife confronts him that "in lawyer's world cops are wrong!". Vedha says we have to cease the opportunity. For him, a cop gets a name by being a cop, but he has to do something to be a hero. For an advise that "smoking kills!", Vedha replies that it feels great to decide our own death ourselves. He says its nauseating to have blood stains and so buys pistols. His policy is not to worry about losing an egg but to make an omelet out of it. The punch soundtrack is too good. Music at times is very loud. Screenplay stands apart and the neatly woven details gives you the embroidered image in the climax. Vikram-vedha a must watch!

The art of "long handles"!!

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Fri, 21 Jul 2017 10:37:00 +0000

My list of favorite batsmen in that order are
1. Ricky Ponting
2. Dravid
3. Kevin Pietersen
4. Rohit Sharma
5. Gilchrist

Disclaimer: Leave out Dravid from the crux of this entire article. He is my out of world cricket love.

The Gilly pull

Rohit Sharma, Stand and Deliver!

One common trait that you can find in the rest of them is they lose the grip of the bat quite frequently when compared to other cricketers. You can list 'n' number of times the bats flying out of the hands of all these players. All of them are exceptionally powerful hitters. They stand tall and are terrific pullers. Their long on to deep mid wicket sixes are as gorgeous as the world beauties. Personally, I like Kevin Pietersen's Flamingo and Ricky Ponting's pull. Gilchrist's jabs are equally powerful and effective.

Yesterday's I was watching Harmanpreet Kaur's class. If you can see a pattern in the list above, then you can easily say, Harmanpreet fitting into that class. You lean when you strike on off side and you stand tall when you hit on leg. Where you close your shots are usually high extension of your bat. Your off side shots will be majestic and your leg side shots will be brutal. I could see Harmanpreet exactly fitting to "my taste" of cricketing skills.

I used to be a hitter during my cricketing days. For power, I use the long handle. Long handle is just the extra inch you get to hold your bat high thereby allowing extension of your arms or allowing powerful jabs. Dhoni fits into the power list with his long handled helicopter shots. The hand extension is the dazzling sight to watch when they play their on side shots.

How long handle can support big hitting is nicely dealt by Aakash Chopra in this article. How they tend to lose the grip because of the way they grip the bat is also dealt here. I was awestruck with Harmanpreet for those high flying sixes that she hit yesterday because those shots are very close to my personal preference in the style and for the power. Stand tall and give a bang! She is indeed a punjabi beauty :)

Wishing good luck in the finals!

The Rohit Sharma_ish hand extension from Harmanpreet Kaur

Harmanpreet Kaur's long handle and hand extension.

Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum (The Exhibits and The Eye Witness)

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 15:36:00 +0000

If I have to pick the best among the bunch of Indian actors today, I would pick Fahadh Faasil and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum (TD) is just another proof for me to say so. I have only one complaint against Fahadh... on taking away the beautiful, charming actress in Nazriya out of the film world. TD is a second film of director Dileesh Pothan and his second assembly with Fahadh. TD is way ahead of Maheshinte Prathikaram (MP), (theirs first) in substance, making and in the performance of the actors. Maheshinte prathikaram with all its difference in film making can still be written off as a masala flick with a great screenplay and making. MP has a real good hero, falling for a girl, good at work, happy with his average lifestyle, getting disturbed and retaliating as masalaic as it can get. TD plays with situations and thus has a very enchanting travel. The wall that separates the good and bad and how tall it gets built by situations, is dealt with finer details.

The screen space is shared between Suraj and Fahadh. Suraj plays a subdued role of behaving an average guy. A regular good youngster role but Suraj's looks doesn't support him. The feminine part of the story has lot to offer and has been handled very well by debutant Nimisha. Nimisha has lot of emotions to convey; fighting against her family, falling for the Suraj, disgust, confusion and pity over the thief. She scores well. Then, there are a bunch of supporting actors playing the role of cops and surprisingly I find all of them are good. Each contributed with different shades of characters. All of them show nuances in the way they portrayed the characters. A cop without uniform always speaks about the negatives of handling the case in certain way. He doesn't run and behaves as a smart guy who sees himself as an intelligent cop and ahead of the rest. A cop who is lean obeys the order perfectly and doesn't have a direction on his own. The Inspector always questions the wrong guy first with a sharp question and sounds intimidating. The cop Chandran plays the role of situationist, always adjusting to the way the situations take him. His' is probably the most vulnerable of all the characters and the thief picks him for a ride. Overall, the characters were well written and the dialogues are crisper enough so as to establish their respective personalities.

Fahadh plays the thief and does a splendid job. He is very clever and very determined. You will be bustled into a state of surprise if what he utters is true or not. Doing so, he carries the whole burden of moving all the characters to the crossroad of right vs wrong. He doesn't trust anybody and shows that in his answers to the cops' questions. He understands Kannada, knows how the system works, cleverly rigs out on the cops. Where he scores above all is the way he expresses himself. His eyes speak a lot. When he gets caught in the bus, he expresses surprise as though the thief is indeed not him. He confuses Nimisha by questioning her if she really saw him. He expresses the cool demeanor when the truth gets found out. When beaten to a pulp, he shows his grit and when he goes down unconscious he drops as a dead meat. Its high time he gets a go in the awards category.

The story revolves around situations thus rides you in a journey. You could easily get a sense of your wisdom getting questioned with each and every situation unfolding. If you are good at role playing, you will be in a real roller-coaster ride. You can experience the swing for and against the cops and similarly on the thief. The film has all these woven amidst regular milieu, witty happenings and in an average town life. TD is brilliant because it rides us through one of those million stories that happen around us daily and shows it just. Kudos to the team and Dileesh for such an experience.

Economic gourds!

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 07:15:00 +0000

When I was born, the 1 paisa was already demonetized (rounded off\decoinized). My life started when 5 paisa was still legal. I have all of these coins in the pic. In addition, have few annas as well.

Both of my grandfathers used to say "ettanna" (eight anna) and "naalanna" (four anna). Apparently, my first pocket money was nalanna given by my dad for a bubble gum (big fun with cricket scores wrapped over it) during my first standard.

Machaan when pronounced in tamil means brother of wife (brother-in-law). This is the relationship version. There is this farming version as well; whereby people have support sticks mostly of bamboo grounded for the vines to spread easily. In short multi-layer farming. Dad was good at both the versions. We used to get more than 10 gourds daily during seasons (mostly we harvest during December and January). Neighbors were bored of gourds and so my task was to give some of the gourds to a shopkeeper in exchange of some money. Mom used to give me some coins from what I get. Those were usually nalanna or ettanna. Those were my first economic lessons as well.

Yesterday, was checking the price of snake gourds in nearby vegetable shop. Per kg cost around Rs25/-. That is 100 naalanna!

Tomorrow is the budget day for India... Have to start growing gourds!!

The story of ONODA

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 07:32:00 +0000

I deliberately want to keep this simple with bullet points. This person Onoda as my friend describes is having inhuman characteristics.

1. Onoda was a Japanese army officer fought in world war II.
2. He was sent to Lubang Island in Philipines to carry out a military operation.
3. He joined a group of japanese soldiers who were sent earlier.
4. Egotism hit as some officers in the group prevented him from doing his assignment.
5. US and Philippine forces took the island into their custody in February, 1945.
6. All soldiers except four (Onoda and three others) either died or surrendered.
7. Onoda continued to live in the mountains.
8. He doubted leaflets which are thrown announcing the end of the war and decided they are hoax.
9. One of the four, walked away from them in 1949 and surrendered to the filipino forces. Rest all became more careful.
10. In 1952, letters and family pictures were dropped from air crafts but they concluded them as hoax.
11. In 1954, one of them gets killed by the search party looking for them.
12. This leaves two of them, who continues to believe that the war is not over.
13. They live for almost 18 years as holdouts.
14. In 1972, one of them gets killed leaving behind Onoda.
15. In February 1974, Onoda met a Japanese college dropout, Norio Suzuki, who was traveling the world and was looking for him.
16. Onoda and Suzuki become friends but Onoda still refused to surrender saying that he was waiting for orders from a superior officer.
17. Suzuki flies to Japan, explains the curious case of Onoda, gets the order from Onoda's superior who is a bookseller.
18. In March 1974, Suzuki flew to Philipines with the order and meets Onoda. Onoda emerges from Jungle after 29 years.
19. Onoda surrenders in uniform with a rifle still in working condition.
20. And you know what he was not the ultimate soldier... there was one more left Teruo Nakamura.

To know more about him, read his auto-biography "No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War".

And friends we say we are brave, loyal, and patriotic! and there is Onoda.

Organizations and labels

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 08:53:00 +0000

Today morning I was conversing with my roomie. He told about the infosys HR guy who killed his wife. I am seeing such news often. Though, the reason for this cause-célèbre is very personal, the reports about it attach the organization for which the person is working for.
Job has become an identity in our society and is an indispensable aspect in the perception about a personality. Today, I googled "wife murder" and below are the results I got.

Another article that I read yesterday brags IT employees' friday groove. In 1980s, during my childhood days, there was a guy in my neighborhood who was working as a teacher in a state government school. He was skilled in hindi and music. He used to run private hindi and music classes and was very popular in our area. We used to call him "Hindi Sir". His mainstream job was never part of the label attached to him. We know him as a person who runs hindi tuition. I believe he did that with passion, got famous and hence earned the label.

Situation now has changed. I have seen legion of IT personnels who are trekkers, musicians, bloggers, movie buffs and other streams which they are very passionate about. In spite of that, labels of organization are attached to them once they are part of public news. The news about the friday groove is an example of that. Same is the scenario even if they get recognized because of such private activities.

You are the identities to yourself, created by your inner world. But, these are the samples of what organization (in which you are part of) can do to you. They attach the popular label through which outside world like to address you. And alike every path this notion also has at least two directions. The organizations should also be aware of the fact that the employees are very indispensable part. They can make or break things.

I pity the infosys guy who killed his wife. Poor planning! may be Infosys' way of doing things.

Rupee symbol

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 06:04:00 +0000

Foradian Technologies have released the new font which has the rupee symbol with the " ~\' " key.

Here is a screenshot!

The symbol looks great!!

Mistakes!

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:09:00 +0000

The Lampard denied goal (in the match England Vs Germany) is creating ripples. We have also started arguing the moral boost that England missed because of the denial. England certainly started feeling the need for speed after they were two goals down. They started their attack and the best part of the game was those 25 odd minutes when suddenly England started to pull things back. But, Lampard's strike was denied and his face reflected the sorry figure of the entire hope.

I always loved how our director puts his words.

What defines a person is not what the person can, or cannot do. What defines a person is what the person can do, but chooses not to do.

I heed on the views of decision makers. So, I wanted to know how FIFA president reacted for the refereeing mistakes. His words as I felt are very sharp deeply reflecting on the subject.

I deplore the obvious refereeing mistakes we have seen. I understand the teams concerned are unhappy. I have personally said ‘I apologise for what happened’ to England. I understand the media criticism, it is their right and job to do so. Still, it’s not the end of the competition, it’s not the end of football. With the denial of the use of technology, we have to accept mistakes.

As FIFA, we need to protect refereeing. We have the responsibility to take the adequate measures to avoid such situations happening again. However, I cannot accept that the integrity of the competition and the referees is called into question.

Its how decisions taken needs to be justified and defended. Future actions should be postponed till a milestone is reached, accept the criticism till then, get those (c)rude oils they can be the fuel in future.

He could have directly argued against criticisms that 'mistakes can happen'. But he didn't do that and that marks his stature. He rather endowed his thoughts stating the integrity of the game. Thats how he should think. FIFA might have got the refereeing decisions wrong but has got a right president.

The fever is on

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:09:00 +0000

I am fond of football and Italy is my favorite team. I remember the days when I watched Salvatore Schillaci and Roberto Baggio. Baggio was my favourite italian player in my school days. And he is my favourite till date. I remember my class twelfth supplementary reader book covered with the sportstar wrapper featuring Baggio. I watched the penalty shootout which he missed in 1994. I loved his Goatee a lot. Those were my early football days. I used to collect the cards given with bubble gums. And we used to trade for getting cards of the famous players. Diego Maradona card was one of the rarest!! We loved him really.

This year I am betting on the following players.

Lionel Messi - for his left footed tackling.
Steven Gerrard - cho chweet... so cute..
Fabio Cannavaro - for his water tight defense.
Fernando Torres - for his speed
Gianluigi Buffon - Goal keeper! He keeps them all his way!!
David Villa - if it is a striker then he will be my man. (Somehow he gets my attention with the name 'David Villa' resembling thalaivar's 'David Billa')
Thierry Henry - His experience should count at some stage of the tournament.

Missing...
Ballack, Zlatan, Luca Toni and Oliver Kahn...

The public peek

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Fri, 21 May 2010 09:22:00 +0000

Having read this, I have some questions.

How the hell the US scientists and so called Prof. J Alex Halderman was given access right to the voting machine?
What are they trying to prove especially by tampering the Indian voting machine?
What Deputy Election Commissioner, Alok Shukla is trying to defend especially the hack has been announced in public?
Shouldn't it be considered cross border terrorism?

No network

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:58:00 +0000

I have recently shifted to Bangalore. Another friend of mine is supposed to shift to Bangalore in a month or two. We have made an agreement to stay together at Bangalore. So, for the time being, I decided to stay with one of my ex-colleagues. My mobile bill has skyrocketed in the past one month with all the roaming stuff I did. Having done that, I wanted to get a new mobile postpaid connection.

My company is situated in outer ring road and is bit remote. In our working premises, only one service provider has the network coverage (Alas! Please inform Dr. Obama that being bangalored also has few hidden operating cost :| ). So, I was left with no other option. I went to the service provider and applied for new postpaid connection. The executive asked a residential proof and photo-id proof. I submitted photocopies of my passport and PAN card. The executive asked me the local residential address and my office address. I informed them that I have shifted to Bangalore recently and I am in a temporary residence these days. The executive said OK. He asked me that during the residence verification, I shouldn't mention that it is a temporary stay. I nodded! I don't have another network to choose from!

Today, I got a call from the residence verification department of the service provider. He asked me "where are you staying?". I mentioned the address. The executive said OK. He asked me when can he come and meet me at the residence? I replied after 1930hrs in the evening (I am an IT guy and so 1930hrs is indeed an evening time). He agreed!. He told me that if I get a call from checking department, I should say that the office address verification has been done yesterday and residential address verification has been completed today. I nodded my head for the second time. No net work!

Given that don't ask me my mobile number.

Population and Emission trading

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:24:00 +0000

Minister of State for Environment and Forests, Mr. Jairam Ramesh announced that India will be eyeing 20-25 percent reduction in the carbon emission intensity. The announcement should be appreciated for we are seriously pondering at global climatic changes. What worried is the way he relates the concern with GDP and population. Relating Emission trading with GDP can be taken with a right sense. But, relating the GDP with population is intolerable. He is reaching the world and he is representing a country. H should have been careful about his statements. He said

The GDP is low because the population is high. The country’s single biggest failure in the last 60 years has been that it could not control the birth rate.

Population control as such should not be treated as a problem anymore. I have the following viewpoints about population control.

It indulges with individual rights. Government shouldn't do that. Government is there to protect it not to prevent it.

Government is not permitted to dictate or frame rules about the number of children a couple can give birth to.

Government is formed for the people. There is no limit as such how many of them will be there.

Every individual has the potential to positively contribute to the GDP. It should be the way the people's Government should view GDP and if not, the Government is failing.

In spite of what Mr. Ramesh termed as the single biggest failure, India managed a GDP growth of more than 4 percent for almost a decade now. India's annual population growth rate lies below at less than 2 percent.

During the recent recessive years, India managed to outperform its global peers in GDP mainly because of its domestic demand.

Its duty of the state to create the arena for the increasing population. That is how a country can prosper.

Its totally against human evolution.

Population is not directly related to carbon emission unless majority of them are farting most of the time.

At this juncture, I want to submit my condemnation to Mr. Jairam Ramesh as a citizen of India.

Wants, urges, climbing ladders and fixing targets

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 07:10:00 +0000

Sometime back I was reading a book on human mind. I should say it was a good read. It dealt about wants and urges of mankind. I read that in our pursuit for something, at the dawn of the journey we are bound to take decisions based on what we are seeking. As more steps get underway, the experience drawn from previous steps decide the course of our travel. Its simply like climbing up a ladder. Fix the target first. Take one step at a time. Be careful that your current step is firmly placed. Take care while you move ahead, and reach the target. Alas! but ladders are not without snakes!

The key point in climbing the ladder is we need to fix the target first. Fixing target needs careful analysis, We should analyze the problem space, decide what we want, fix the target and place the ladder. Once we fix the ladder we start moving ahead. Remember, ladder cannot be locomoted when you are on it. When you start climbing, be sure that the target is fixed.

I have experienced this, when I try a new thing, I start travelling towards it. When I get to know about something related, I try to know about that too. That leads to another related thing and the journey goes on. Sometime after, I sense that I have totally lost track of what I initially wanted. Believe me! It happens! Its the urge of human mind to get to know about related things. We want something, the urge keeps us going, and when we stumble on a related new thing the urge also changes. So, all such 'getting hand on related things' should happen before fixing a target. If it goes on after the target is fixed, you want the ladder to be locomoted and to your pity you are on it.

Wants should get the priority over urges. Decide on what you want. That should act as the stimuli to your urge. If the urges stimulate your wants then it is disaster ahead. This often happens because you are not sure of what you are seeking. Absence of vision leads to alternatives to objectives. What else, they are just alternatives and not objectives. So, you are totally lost even before you start. So, fixing up what you want is a key step. It is hard and so it needs to be done. If you go by urges, at some point of time, you may come across 'many things' but won't know what you want. Apparently, unless you know what you want, you cannot get anything.

The target you fixed initially should act as the driving force towards the destination. You may feel the urge to get disrupted, but if the focus is on the target then it can make you move ahead. If not, ladder is of no use and you are wandering and not climbing.

Rice!

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:28:00 +0000

For those who moan over the annual food inflation at 14.55 percent, comes salt for the wound. India! hailed as the second largest country in rice production will be importing rice after 21 years. How and why are two serious questions that everyone wants to look into. Rice being the backbone of India with high percentage of consumers in its eastern and southern parts, measuring the impact of this rice import in common man's (Indian citizen) life is crucial.

How and why it happened? We all know India's agricultural sector depends greatly on the monsoons. This year the monsoon has failed. Government reports 23% below normal monsoon. This also is rated as the worst in 37 years. So the impact is evident and justified. The state cannot be held responsible for failed monsoon. We have to accept the decision with gumption.

This year's poor monsoon has raised doubts about the output of summer-sown crops popularly called as kharif crops. The estimated shortage of production is around 69.45 million tonnes at 18 percent. Government reports as on Oct. 1, rice stocks at warehouses were 84 percent higher at 14.5 million tonnes than last year. Still we are importing. Indian Government is desperate in importing at least 3 million tonnes. In this scenario a peek into the figures on export is also mandatory. It averages to 4.56 million tonnes from 2002-2009. When we predict a shortage in production, the decision on exporting this much needs to be questioned. Forecasting import is as necessary and inevitable and it should be treated on par with a check on the export rate. It requires careful analysis too. At last! at the political front, rice politics usually is famous in India and no Government will even think of messing up with rice.

Government strives to work out a state-to-state deal with Thailand the biggest rice exporter. State-to-state trade may be a good strategic with the following advantages.

Thailand is planning to clear its stockpile for supporting new harvest.

Procurement from Thailand can be effective since the domestic procurement price from the farmers of the state is slightly ahead of Thailand's export price, This gives procurement possibility at competitive rates.

Tender based import deals can be overlooked by state-to-state trade deals. This can squeeze up the deal price further.

If everything works out fine, India can overcome its short term rice crisis. Impact on citizen will be almost nil. But, Government's next year's move in handling rice exports will be seriously watched. Government should pick up nifty ways to handle it.

Dunbar's number

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:35:00 +0000

Recently, there was some resource reallocation in our company. Ours was a team of twelve members. The schedule and technology demanded more. I had a one-on-one session with our mentor and brought up the issue. He said he cannot allocate more resource to our team. The decision is not a big surprise given the engineering strength we have but the reason is. Precisely, what I wanted was to put forward details of the resource requirement not an actual resource allocation. Our mentor mentioned that my current manager can handle only 'this much'. I thanked god he didn't mention 'this bunch'. That would turn the pointers on us.

To be frank, I consider our team as a group of self motivated and disciplined individuals (blah! that includes me too). Till I read this Seth Godin article on Dunbar's number, I thought managing a team like ours is not a real big deal. Though he talks about building tribes, I got what I wanted.

In his book "Good to Great" Jim Collins quotes

The executives who ignited the transformations from good to great did not first figure out where to drive the bus and then get people to take it there. No, they first got the right people on the bus (ofcourse the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it.

Compensation, job opportunities and technical exposure often are the cliched as motivational factors. I believe if we have right people, they will be a group of self-motivated individuals. What the management should do is take care that they are not demotivated by external factors. The external factor also includes other resources.

I thought my mentor was right in relating the Dunbar number with my manager's capabilities. He also took care that the current self-motivated 'bunch' is not demotivated by adding 'much' more.

IITs and school education

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:52:00 +0000

Union Minister for Human Resource Development Mr. Kapil Sibal's this statement, has cropped issues related to schooling in India. Yielding to the pressure, Mr. Sibal overturned and said that the issue will be left to the hands of the IIT Council. Not only the premier IITs, the next graded NITs have also taken up the issue of raising the qualification marks.

The issue brought out the grip of muffling coaching centers in the school education. Some IIT aspirants even quit school and join the coaching centers. They can privately prepare for their board examinations which demands only 60 percent marks.

I recollect the hay days of my school education. I am from south Tamil Nadu. I should say that education system was rather bad. Teachers in the school often run their own tuition centers. They won't complete the syllabus in the school. The inclusion of the laboratory internal marks had a real stranglehold on the students. Teachers urge the students to join the tuition centers run by them or else the internal marks will be obliterated. But I should admit, the teachers were really loyal to their tuition centers and the coaching was spot-on. During weekdays we attended the tuition centers run by our school teachers. During weekends we ran to the coaching centers for entrance examinations. It was all about running !! Now I love running maybe it started there.

The Tamil Nadu government saw this and had abolished the TNPCEE (Tamil Nadu state entrance examinations). I should say that this move almost eliminated all the entrance examinations coaching centers in our town. They are either converted to tuition centers or they are out of existence. The TN government is also smart, that it asked the HSC teachers not to run their own tuition classes. Though it still remains a plea and has not made as a rule, and even today the teachers are still cashing on tuition class I am glad that the government is atleast aware of the situation.

The central government is rather late in bringing up this issue. I firmly believe that the very existence of private coaching centers itself proves that there is something wrong in the education provided at schools. To add, if all these CBSE school syllabus is framed by central board why are we having entrance examinations for central government ran institutions? I relate this to software, the person who designs should be part of the coders arena. Otherwise he will not be knowing how his design is creating shackles. The board for school education and the IIT council should have some common personnel representation.

People say that coaching centers take that extra care and ensure success. Believe me! it is not about the extra care, it is about the shortcoming of the schooling education across the country. Unless we make the HSC score as the single selection criteria, we will not be able to solve the shortcoming of the school education. Unless you solve the problem at grass root level, it is not solved. To magnify the worries, it is happening at the education system and at the grass root level. It really is a national issue.

Shortcuts

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:33:00 +0000

Today a 25 year old infosys employee was arrested for raising a bomb scare at Delhi airport. Reason for such an act is so simple, he feared of missing his flight.

The chain of events is as follows

Abhishek Gupta (25), was coming from Lucknow to Delhi in Gorakhnath Express. He expected to reach Delhi by 0600 hrs. He had to catch the 0845 hrs GoAir flight to Bangalore. The train got delayed. He called the GoAir's call centre prior to the departure of the flight and asked to reschedule his journey and put him on the next flight. But his plea was rejected by GoAir authority.

Desperate Gupta called up the staff again and informed that there was some suspicious object on the plane. The passengers were set down and the bomb disposal squad was put on service. Gupta reached the airport by 0930 hrs and asked for a boarding pass. Thats it! our officials picked his collar!!

Being a software professional myself I compared myself with Gupta. In our company, we speak about culture a lot. Both life and software are often interrelated. My mentor used to advise us a lot on problem solving. What we learnt from him are

Shortcuts in solving a problem will be more costlier than the actual solution.

The culture will be getting reflected in the way we do things and the behavior in doing things is not episodic. It will be consistent.

So, if I were in a situation of Gupta, I would have come late, I would have sued the railways for the loss caused to me because of the delay. What I get from railways and what not is of little significance. It will be an act of disclosing things to the public.Thats it! In future, I will plan such that there are no last minute surprises and no showstoppers. This is how we do softwares and this is how it is applicable in life. They really aren't episodic.

If I take up a shortcut like Gupta did I would be behind the bars as Gupta. Shortcuts are costlier than the actual solution.

Roman Polanski lawsuit

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:53:00 +0000

Accept that he is a good filmmaker with films like 'Rosemary's Baby' and 'The Pianist'. Being good filmmaker doesn't mean that he should be treated above the law. The case of Roman Polanski is gore as seen in some of his films. Here is the timeline of the case.

March 12, 1977 - Polish film director Roman Polanski, widower of murdered actress Sharon Tate, was on charges of luring a 13-year-old girl under the pretext of photographing her, then drugging and raping her.

March 26, 1977 - Conviction on the charges could send Polanski to prison for up to 50 years. Polanski, 43, remained free on $2,000 bail.

August 10, 1977 - Court ordered that psychiatrists appointed by it will examine Roman Polanski in Los Angeles if he can be labelled as a 'mentally disordered sex offender'.

September 20, 1977 - A 90-day psychiatric study is ordered by the court to to help the judge decide his sentence.

February 3, 1978 - Roman Polanski flees from United States and arrives at his Paris apartment. This happens just hours before he was to have been sentenced in a California court. Consistent with its extradition treaty with the United States, France can refuse to extradite its own citizens. An extradition request later filed by U.S. officials was denied.

From there on Polanski is cautious enough to avoid visit to countries (such as the UK) that were likely to extradite him and mostly travelled in France, Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland. Well he is a director himself and he know how to escape imprisonments like his heroes!

There comes the Zurich film festival. Polanski travels to accept the award. An US team arrests him. Chief inspector Thomas Hession whose team arrested Polanski, said Polanski had been the subject of an Interpol "red notice" for years. He said Polanski was arrested because authorities had the advance knowledge and the opportunity. "The idea that we have known where he is and we could have gotten him anytime, that just isn't the case," he said.

The whole thing can form a plot for a movie. Well! we can inform Polanski to direct that on his release. All these mean that Polanski is intelligent enough to direct good films, intelligent enough to convince a mother for photographing her 13 year old child, intelligent enough to drug her and rape her, intelligent enough to flee to countries which wont extradite its citizens. People are now saying that he is a good director and should be forgiven for a crime done 30 years ago. Even the 13 year old girl whom Polanski raped says,

Straight up, what he did to me is wrong he would return to America so the whole ordeal can be put to rest for both of us. I think he's sorry, I think he knows it was wrong. I don't think he's a danger to society. I don't think he needs to be locked up forever and no one has ever come out ever - besides me - and accused him of anything. It was 30 years ago now. It's an unpleasant memory.

All these mean that Polanski is intelligent enough to direct good films, intelligent enough to convince a mother for photographing her 13 year old child, intelligent enough to drug her and rape her, intelligent enough to flee to countries which won't extradite its citizens.

Well! Samantha! even if you forgive him for his act, should he not stand before the law for defying the same for 30 odd years? Having defied the law for 30 odd years should be treated against Polanski as a 30 year crime and he must face the law.

Stripping and job security

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 05:13:00 +0000

A forwarded mail says

When your friend loses his job it is recession, when you lose your job it is depression

I don't know in which state I am in, but the recession is taking its toll globally. An act of desperation and the tough job market is causing women to dance in strip clubs. Here is an interesting article which speaks about job market, job security, women and 'thick skin'.

Is there any such options available for men?

Browsers

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:49:00 +0000

Microsoft has released a new report titled Measuring Browser Performance: Understanding issues in benchmarking and performance analysis.

Microsoft says

This document explains the various browser and network components and how each piece can impact performance when benchmarking.

Interesting fact as per the report is IE loads mozilla.com faster than Firefox, and Firefox loads microsoft.com faster than IE. Well! it might be evoking controversies soon.

Recession, Free trade and currency manipulation

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 06:47:00 +0000

So everything is going on around the global recession. The blame game started. The West is pointing fingers on Asia for the economic recession. If the mentality gets its steam then analysts suggest that we could possibly see a protectionist approach from the west.

A future protectionist approach is clearly evident with the way economists see the policy reforms of Mr. Obama. Mr. Geithner, the US secretary of treasury is already blaming China's foreign exchange policies.

When the growth of China has slowed down (from 11 to 6 percent), it is clearly a blame game from the west. It is truly an adaptation of the facts to implement the protectionist approach. Mr. Obama is not promising at all in the economic reforms.

Oscars bagged

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 05:46:00 +0000

Mr. A. R. Rahman bagged two oscars.
1. Best Original Score
2. Best Song

Greatest of achievements indeed.

Leaking

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 13:14:00 +0000

Confidentiality nowadays is almost a sick word.

Some of the disturbing news are the latest leakages.

1. Oscar winners list (It is also termed as hoax by the Oscar spokesperson)

2. U2's upcoming album No Line On The Horizon has been leaked on to the web and is widely available on Torrent sites.

May be the concerned professionals should check the leakages. I recommend a glue stick :)

Legal battle?

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh Gopalasubramanian) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:34:00 +0000

In a strange chain of incidents, chennai lawyers and police officials set a path-breaking example. The list of incidents happened as below

1. On 17-Feb-09, Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy was manhandled and abused by a group of lawyers for his anti LTTE stand.

2. On 19-Feb-09, arrest of their fellow colleagues is protested against by some group of lawyers.

3. Police lathicharged the protesters.

4. The lawyers pelted stones on police officials. Eventually, the police station is burnt.

5. A judge is injured.

The notable point is; all these events took place in the high court campus. Now I have few questions, where the legal proceedings for these incidents will be carried out? Who will carry out the proceedings? Who will be given the justice and who will be punished?