The Meta Blog

I am constantly amazed by how much time I can spend online, browsing the blogs of perfect strangers. On Orkut, I once found a girl's blog. I had traversed through several links of friends' friends, and for some reason I stopped to read this girl's blog. She was Maharashtrian, and lived in the bay area. That's it. That's all I knew about her: a single Maharashtrian 20-something FOB in the bay area. I read her blog for something like 3 hours. I read about her roommates, her fiance, her colleagues, diwali celebrations and barbeque parties. It was a busy, ordinary life - a carbon copy of the one I live, all my friends live. And yet I was totally fascinated.

Blogging is a unique medium: at once intimate and exhibitionist. Some people use their blog as a soapbox, discoursing to an invisible audience, holding forth on science, technology, religion, what have you. Others use it to keep their friends updated, in lieu of writing mass emails. And there are those who use it to put their life on display: come look at me, I'll perform for you free!

I often thought about how much I would enjoy blogging. I'm sure everyone has, at one time or another. We all have a story to tell, or an opinion to express. But I held back for years... never knowing how to structure such a blog. Writing about one's life is hard. For one, I am too private a person to discuss my feelings before everybody I know. Besides, you cannot discuss events without discussing people, and it is hard to candidly discuss the people in your life. No, actually, it is scarily easy, but that is called gossip :) And I have to admit, a blog about my daily life would quickly become, how should I put this.. boring. I have trouble enough coming up with things to tell my parents in our weekly phone call. And these are people who are interested in what I had for dinner yesterday. Much more interesting to talk about my opinions on life, the universe and everything. So I've been writing about important, interesting topics: politics, spirituality, women in engineering, and ofcourse, my phone. It's fun, and I enjoy it.

The fact that some people have actually read these entries is unnerving, though. It is nice in a way, (because there is an exhibitionist inside each of us). On the other hand it makes me very self conscious. The knowledge that somebody may read an entry invariably affects how it is written. Sort of like Heisenberg's principle. Or, if you prefer, like Phoebe from Friends.. you know the episode where she sings on the street outside the coffee shop to piss off the coffee shop people? She sings some lame song and makes a dollar fifty. But then she sings Smelly Cat and only makes 20 cents. So she's torn between fame and artistic integrity :)

Wonder how long I'll keep up this blogging thing. It is a shame that most good ideas come to me when I'm in no position to blog about them. On the other hand, the few times that ideas strike at the right time, blogging sure beats talking to myself!

The truth about cats and dogs

Have you ever asked yourself the tough questions? The uncomfortable ones. The kind that get Larry Summers into trouble? You know Larry Summers - the Harvard president who suggested that men are smarter than women. Ok, not smarter, but better at maths and science. While women are better at, you know, colour coordinating outfits.

It is a strange, strange world.

All those years growing up, I knew I lived in a bubble. Inside the bubble, boys and girls were treated almost the same. Parents encouraged their daughters to excel in school and seek exciting careers. Girls walked around in jeans and skirts, free to say and do what they pleased. Every now and then we bumped up against the walls of that bubble. Our maids told of being beaten up by their drunk husbands. Our professors thought we lacked motivation. A school teacher once told my class that working women took jobs away from men who were the sole breadwinners for their family. In engineering college, only 30% of the students were girls. Well, of course, what do you expect in an underdeveloped country like India. Then as we went from one year to the next, it became clear the boys were out performing the girls. It's not that all the girls were flunking, it's that none of the top performers were girls. There were a lot of socialization issues there, girls hung out and talked about clothes and movies. Boys hung out with their seniors, discussed computers, kept updated with the latest technology news. Indian girls grew up in such an inherently sexist society, they were always at a major disadvantage. The stereotypes drilled into their minds by years of subconscious learning could not be easily erased. They were afraid to think for themselves, and if there's one field where a gal needs to think for herself, its software.

In the infinite wisdom of my youth, I knew exactly where the problem lay. It was our backward society, and we had to cast off the shackles. Ofcourse, in a place like the US, things would be different. Feminism had come to America atleast a generation earlier.

Yes, of all the surprises I found in the US, this was the most - surprising. All through my graduate course, I met 0 American women - count them, 0. Of course, there were very few Americans in the first place. There were lots of Indians, but only a handful of Indian women among the engineers. Among the far east Asian students, the proportions were much closer, a sizeable number of women. Apart from that, there was one European and one Jamaican. No Americans. I didn't even notice it at first.. was too caught up in my own life. But as time went by, I noticed it more and more. TV shows that implicitly associated women with shopping and cooking and dressing up (and being emotionally unstable). Movies that painted scientists as absent minded, socially handicapped, geeky men who never got any action. In fact, I'm trying to think of a female character who's smart technically and doesn't look at intelligence as uncool - so far, I've come up with Lisa Simpson.

What is most disturbing is that in this post feminist world, women have made a lot of progress. They are powerful politicians, chairmen and CEOs. But not scientists, not engineers. I remember Newsweek did a cover story about women leaders one time. I searched through their list for technical women leaders... in vain. The CEO of HP came up the sales/marketing/finance ladder. Meg Whitman of eBay is not a geek either. Later, somebody made a list online about top 10 geek women - apparently they were so starved for candidates, they added Paris Hilton; and Lisa Simpson!

I'm rambling, I know. I'll try to pull this post into some kind of structure...
A quick recap - I start out in life with wide eyed innocence, and naive confidence. Women are every bit as good as men. Then questions start to arise - why are so many of the girls in my college dumb? They do well when it comes to learning things by heart, but are terrible when it comes to applying their mind. Possible reasons come to mind - years of social conditioning, afraid to think for themselves,
uninterested in pursuing the field they've chosen. But then, what about a place where women have had a generation to get over these hurdles. A place where women are assertive, show great creative skills, great leadership skills - and yet fail to produce great technical skills? Is it social conditioning again - is it just a different kind of conditioning? Instead of being taught to be submissive and unobtrusive, American women are being conditioned to be materialistic, beautiful and air headed.
A strange kind of equality, which allows shows like "Beauty and the Geek" to be produced.

Hmm, so much for the structure, I'm rambling again. But I do have a point - are women "differently abled" than men? Does that extra limb in the second X have maths inhibiting genes? Given a wide choice of career fields - most women here have chosen non-technical fields. Overwhelmingly so. Is this social conditioning or intrinsic ability? Nature or nurture?

It's an uncomfortable question. On the one hand, it goes against everything I have ever believed, to think that women just may not be made for scientific thinking. On the other hand, scientific thinking demands that we think objectively - objectively speaking this is always a possibility.

Undoubtedly, something keeps women away from maths and science. Until we isolate the maths gene, we can only argue about nature versus nurture. In the meantime, we have to fumble our way through. Let's not take the weight of our sex on our shoulders, lets think of ourselves as individuals and see what we can do. Let history make the judgment.
I look at all the intelligent women I do know - the ones who are passionate about what they do, and have had successful technical careers. Its not many, but it is sufficient.

After all, even if it is true that men are smarter than women - even if there is only one freak-of-nature woman (in the entire world) who is truly smart; wouldn't it be a terrible injustice to that one woman to claim that all women are dumb?

After all, a zillion truth cases cannot prove a theorem, but one false case can disprove it.

nothing to see here

Lazy Sunday Afernoon

I have to admit, I don't have any topic to blog about today. No rant about incompetent officials, no spiritual discussions about karma..
(hmm, this is really weird.. I have a new version of firefox, which comes with an inline spell checker. The spell checker doesn't recognize "blog" but it's ok with "karma". Maybe a spell checker for a web browser should be more internet aware?)
Anyway, so like I was saying - I have nothing to say. I'm here to celebrate a weekend spent away from work. It's a lovely spring day outside, warm and sunny (sorry to the folks who're still shoveling snow!) And I have no deadlines to worry about, nowhere to go, no work to complete. I have cleaned the kitchen, watered the plants, done my laundry, paid my bills and thus am feeling greatly virtuous. Only one regret - I have been robbed of a full hour of my life, thanks to daylight savings..

Oh, and I'm a prisoner in my home - this one is a funny story, just don't tell it to my parents!
So Thursday evening I was pulling out of our office garage when another driver started gesticulating wildly at me. I had no idea what he was complaining about - I wasn't blocking his way, he was blocking mine. But it turns out, he was telling me that my headlights were off. So I pulled into the next parking lot and took a look. Sure thing, they wouldn't turn on. It is strange that both headlamps would blow off at the same time, so there's probably something wrong in the controls. Fortunately, the high beam came on and I was able to drive home. Of course, Friday I forgot all about this and had to drive home on high beam again. And it turns out that the VW service centers are closed over the weekend. Great, this means I can't drive after dark at all this weekend! Anyway, yesterday morning a friend came over to look at the headlights - I wanted a second opinion in case it was something trivial. He was examining the headlights and asked me for the drivers manual. I pulled it out of the glove compartment and caught sight of my insurance card - my insurance payment was due March 5th... I had been driving around without insurance for the last week (they can probably jail you for this!) So I went back into my apartment and frantically called Farmer's. They gladly took my payment over the phone, so hopefully that's taken care of. But when I was putting the insurance card back, I found - you guessed it - my registration card. Now that one had expired a month ago!
So for those of you keeping score, if a cop had stopped me Friday night - I would have been driving (a) without headlights, (b) with high beam on the freeway, (c) in an unregistered car and (d) without insurance. I guess it's a good thing nobody stopped me on Friday. Turns out my lights blowing out was probably for the best. You know, like in that story where the king cut his finger and got angry with his minister.

Hence my self imposed house arrest today. And first thing tomorrow I get to go to the DMV. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of visiting a DMV in the bay area, its about as much fun as a trip to the Pune RTO.

So this weekend has been a bit of a bummer, but not a total loss. I did go out yesterday (I didn't drive) - and checked out a Toyota Prius. I am itching to buy a new car, and living in tree hugging Northern California means that I feel obliged to buy a hybrid. It's not a bad car; it has all kinds of cool gizmos like a navigation system, rear view camera and cool graphics for energy generation, consumption, battery charge etc. And bluetooth, and a smart key system, which means the key communicates with the car by wireless and doesn't actually have to be inserted anywhere. (It has been six years since I last went car shopping, and it feels like there's a whole new generation of technology! And when I first came here, I was impressed by remote keys and garage door openers) And all this at about three times the fuel efficiency of my current car! Ok looking, the shape feels a little weird at first but grows on you.

And so there is my weekend in a nutshell - oh and I had "desi" pizza which was alright, and watched Man of the Year which was just too random for my taste.

No pithy comment to end the blog.. Oh yeah, Firefox spell check is bad. It also doesn't like bluetooth, inline, hmm and ok. It doesn't approve of firefox or internet with lower case first letters. And it insists on spell checking 3 letter acronyms, so it also flags DMV and RTO. tsk tsk.

The human angle

You know how Hollywood is a sucker for the "human angle"? How they love to tell the story of an epic historical event through the way it affects the life of a regular person?

Well, if they want to tell the Iraq story, they can use this boy's life. It is one of the most harrowing things I have read in my life... the blog begins at the end of 2003 sometime, started by a 16 year old schoolboy who barely speaks English. The first year's entries are almost entirely about soccer. And computer games. When the body does mention the political situation, he is the epitome of the grateful Iraqi - you know, the kind who would welcome American soldiers with garlands. He talks excitedly about Bush visiting Iraq.

A couple of years later, he talks excitedly about being old enough to vote, finally! His entries are full of optimism, hope, national pride. Thrilled to have a free country, excited about the anticipated progress, enthusiastic about new leaders.

Then an anxious note creeps into his blogs.. he notices that Shiite militias are attacking Sunnis like him. He is afraid. But then the Sunnis react by trying to keep Sunni students out of universities. He is exasperated at the idiocy of his own people. And then the situation spirals into madness. After that, his entries morph into one long desperate scream for help - for rescue from the nightmare that is his daily life. Shells exploding outside his door, neighbours being struck dead by randomly aimed mortars. Always existing in the shadow of death. He is applying for a student visa abroad, and is not too proud to ask total strangers for money over the internet. No more pride in his country, no more desire to make his mark in the new society.
Now he is just looking to get out as soon as he can.

In three short years, from soccer in school to shells outside his house, Nabil has come a long way. In December 2005, his entry said "Just wanna say that I am still alive (lol) ..."
If he wrote that today, I don't think there would be a "lol" at the end of it.

Ridiculouser and ridiculouser

(yes I know, lousy title!)

Sometimes I don't know what the people "in charge" are smoking! Boston went into panic mode Wednesday because police got calls about terrorist bombs in subways, bridges, tunnels etc. After half the city was shut down for several hours, turns out the "bombs" were just a marketing campaign for a TV show. A marketing campaign, btw, which has run in other parts of the country for several weeks without generating any panic.
Of course, politicians and policemen tried to save face by blustering about "insensitivity" and "post 9/11 world" and so on. Fine. But then, they went and arrested the guys who put up the signs. And I do mean the guys who physically put up the signs. What a logical and completely appropriate way to make up for their previous overreaction! In this bizzaro world, the CEO of Turner was forced to apologize for the whole situation.
And everybody from the man on the street to editorials in newspapers are talking about how this was a completely rational reaction in this "post 9/11 atmosphere" to strange electronic devices on billboards "with wires sticking out of them". Yeah, these were clearly dangerous bombs -

Article

Yes, do check out the picture on that article. If you have time, read the article too - and weep. Weep that on this poverty stricken, starving planet, (somebody's) valuable money is being spent on this ridiculous prosecution. Two men are being put through all this torment by little-minded people trying to save face.

Turning from Boston to Norwich, Connecticut.. where a teacher was found guilty of "risk of injury to a minor" and "impairing the morals of a child". Heinous crimes these, felonies - with a possible maximum of 40 yrs jail time. What do you suppose the teacher was doing to these children and their morals? The imagination reels..
Shall I tell you what she is accused of?

Pop-ups!
Yes, ladies and gentlemen - the computer in the classroom went into an endless loop of pornographic pop-ups. The "computer illiterate" panic-stricken teacher ran to the teachers room to fetch help. But too late - atleast 10 kids had seen these images and are now scarred for life! The prosecution claims the teacher surfed porn sites in the classroom. The defence claims spyware infected the computer and caused the pop-ups. The prosecution says the defence is lying. Except, of course, the defence has experts who diagnosed the computer and found that it did in fact have spyware. OTOH, the prosecution has experts who claim the computer logs show she did visit those websites. Of course, I am not a "computer expert" by any stretch of the imagination, but there is just the teensiest possibility that these logs track HTTP requests made, and not mouse click positions on web pages. But of course, the judge would know more about such stuff. She allowed the prosecution's claims, but wouldn't let the defence experts say that there was spyware on the computer. (No idea of the reason behind this)

So is it fair to say the jury may have got a slightly unbalanced view of the case? I don't blame the jury for convicting actually - they do what they do. I blame the prosecution. Prosecutors have to protect the law - they don't have to prosecute someone unless they actually think the person is guilty. If defence attorneys refused to defend guilty people, they would be out of a job pretty quick. But if prosecutors refused to prosecute innocent people, they would still have plenty of cases to try.

Why, oh why, then, do they go after these obviously innocent people? Just because uninformed people in the community are "outraged" by half baked stories they hear - Why do the prosecutors have to go along? Why do they participate in what can only be described as hysteria driven modern day lynching?

Funny thing - just as I asked myself that question, I remembered a story from my high school English textbook. It was something about a man shooting an elephant in Burma. The villagers thought the elephant was mad, and they expected this man to shoot it. The man could see that the elephant wasn't mad - but what was he going to do? There was a crowd of people gathered to watch him, he had the rifle raised to his shoulder, the elephant in his sights. Was he just going to put the rifle down and walk away? He could, but that would look so.... foolish.

So he shoots a healthy elephant in cold blood, rather than risk looking foolish before a crowd.

Wow, I'm glad I got the moral of that story, even if it did take me 15 years :)

The way of all flesh

A few months ago, I was shopping around for a new phone. So far, I've been a cheapskate - I just get whichever phone comes free with the cellular service. Which means that 2 months ago, my phone didn't even have a camera (*gasp*). But this time around, I had to shell out cold cash - and I figured this one had to last me a couple of years at least. So I shopped around a little, asked around a little. A colleague completely sold me on the Nokia e61. A nice big screen of amazing clarity, qwerty keyboard, full-functionality browser, tons of mobile apps to download, tons of symbian apps to run (even ssh). And wifi. Actual wifi. Though not in the standard US version - nooo. Cingular took the wifi out before marketing the phone to Americans (hmm, I wonder why).

And so my decision was made. I would get the e61, which meant I would have to order it online. It wasn't easy. This is apparently a very popular phone, and most places were on backorder. After waiting more than a month for Amazon to fulfill my order, I finally bought it from eBay. Now, I've never bought anything from eBay before, so I was on tenterhooks till the box arrived on my doorstep.

Finally! It was here, my beautiful, fabulous new phone!


I was finally up to date with the digital world. No longer was I the cheapskate with the low-tech phone. My phone was right up there with the trendiest and the coolest. It had a beautiful screen, an awesome browser, lots of cool apps, and ofcourse - wifi. I spent the next couple of weeks boring the heck out of everyone I met. How it had a qwerty keyboard, how you could ssh from it, how I had beaten the system (i.e. Cingular) by ordering the wifi version. [My father wasn't impressed - no camera? he said disdainfully] One time, I insisted on doing a side-by-side size comparison of the e61 and the Blackberry (*blush*). I even spent eighty dollars on a completely unnecessary bluetooth headset, just so I could use my phone's bluetooth feature.

You know what happened last week? Everyone was talking about it - everyone was looking for it - everyone was drooling over it. Steve Jobs announced Apple's entry into the cell phone market with ...




This is why I never go for "the latest gadget" thing - the latest gadget is obsolete by the time you unwrap the packaging. *sigh*
And you know the unkindest cut of all? Cingular's going to sell the iPhone *with* wifi.

Karmic Energy

(Is it normal to be writing blog posts at 1:30 am after a 12 hour workday? Probably. *sigh*)

One of my pet peeves is the English use of the word karma - you know, as in "chaarma". And even worse, "chaarmic". It's one of those overused, grossly misunderstood, new-agey words tossed around as a poor substitute for actual philosophy.

But yet, I personally find Karma yoga, as described in the Geeta, fascinating. And somehow very... satisfying. Let me elaborate..

For a long time the concept of Nishkaam Karma seemed totally unrealistic to me. Basically, it says - "You have the right to act, but not to the fruits of your actions". Do your duty, but without consideration for the result.
Now firstly, how would one generate the passion for action if one is not to think of the reward? But more importantly, if we take the result out of the equation, what is the *motivation* for the action in the first place? What makes the action right or wrong if not the result?
For e.g., If I see a drowning child, I ask myself - what should I do? Should I try to rescue the kid or should I continue walking? The "fruit" of my action is the child surviving. Now if that is irrelevant, then what difference does it make what I do? Why is jumping into the water right and walking away wrong?
Inescapable logic, right? This whole nishkaam karma thing is garbage - dump it! Oh, the blissful arrogance of being 21 :)

And then, years later, it finally got through my thick head. It took a few knocks of fate, and some in-depth reading.. But, one morning as I was brushing my hair, it fell in place - the whole thing makes perfect sense! In fact, its the most logical thing in the world.
The only thing you control in this world is *your own actions*. You can influence the fruits of your action, but in the end you cannot control them. So, you concentrate on what is in your power, and don't worry about the part that isn't in your power. It's not some ghastly self-sacrificing philosophy, it's the most empowering thing in the world. See, I could set a goal - say, getting a promotion. I could work my ass off, take great risks, pull late nights, jump hoops. At the end of a year, my boss decides that I shouldn't get a promotion - and what happens? My goal is not met, I am a failure, I am miserable. On the other hand, what if I say to myself - I am a software engineer, therefore my duty is to be the best software engineer I possibly can?
I still work my ass off, take great risks, all the same stuff. At the end of a year, I ask myself - was this the best I could be? Now, my goal is entirely in my own hands, my happiness is in my hands, my success is measured completely by things under my control. And as a nice side bonus, I probably get promoted too.

By giving up the fruits of your actions, you are not giving up happiness. Quite the contrary, you are saying that you and you alone control your happiness. You are taking charge of your destiny. Why waste time and energy worrying, hoping, envying, craving something that is beyond your control? And it is beyond your control, everything in this world is - other than your own self, your own actions. Take all that energy you spend dwelling on the outcome, and channel it into your effort. Ironically, it will only make the outcome easier to achieve.

It is an awesome philosophy. It is a strategy for success and a moral compass, all at the same time. After all, suppose you'd bad mouthed your rival colleague to get the promotion? And you still didn't get it? You would be stuck with the same sucky job, your colleague would hate you, and you wouldn't be able to sleep nights. The way I look at it is, you never know for sure what result your choices will lead to. So, just choose the path that lets you live with yourself, and leave the rest to fate.

It's a scary thing to do - we are not wired for this sort of thinking. Self interest, self preservation even, gets in the way. But try it sometime. Instead of asking - will taking on this task make me look good; ask - will taking this task be the right thing to do? When you can do it, its incredibly freeing. Funnily enough, once you get past the terrible fear, the second question is easier to answer than the first. And the pleasure of doing a good deed, and doing it well, can generate a passion all its own.

And as a bonus, you'll always have a clear conscience. After all, the greater cosmic question is not "Can I rescue the child?" The question is "Did I stand by and do nothing while a child was drowning?"

(P.S: Yes, I know, I've skipped over key issues, made some leaps of logic, and conveniently ignored some of my own questions. Whatever! Its almost 3 am, and this is a blog post, not a book!)

Lynching Despots:

Yes, I know, it's been more than a week since Saddam Hussein was executed. But the controversy surrounding his death is very much alive. I wasn't following the news too closely, so I'm not sure when the execution of a criminal got spun into sectarian lynching. But it baffles the heck out of me. It's one thing for the execution to generate controversy in the middle east. In that pressure cooker, it is inevitable that every action, every gesture gets interpreted and reinterpreted for ulterior motives.

But I can't understand the global outrage. Could the execution have been handled better? Probably. But guys, pick your battles. Talking heads all across America are complaining about the unseemly haste with which the sentence was carried out.. Would you prefer that his case languish through years of appeals? Did the Iraqi prime minister hurry the execution through? He probably did - so would you, if you had a ticking time bomb like a condemned Saddam sitting in your jail. This is a lawless country where insurgents set off roadside bombs in the capital daily. A determined escape attempt could very likely have succeeded. Isn't it possible the prime minister was just trying to get the whole thing over with? Then there's the "unseemly" behaviour of the guards. Apparently they were taunting him - Shocking! A barbarous tyrant was being led out to receive his just deserts, and the people he oppressed and tortured were taunting him? I thought they'd be handing out flowers!
The guards also shouted Moqtada Al Sadr's name several times. This did bother me, actually - it bothered me enough that I looked up more information on Moqtada online. (Yes, I'm ashamed of having to do that, but I needed to separate facts from impressions). Apparently, his party is actually part of the coalition government. And according to a US poll, some 67% of Iraqis support him to some degree. Hardly seems surprising then, that among the guards were some who admired him enough to shout his name. After all, his father was a highly respected cleric, murdered by Saddam's thugs.

NPR had a piece about the "incident" today. The expert commentator was, of all things, an art critic. He talked about how the grainy, unprofessional nature of the cell phone film gave the execution an air of seedy underhandedness. Well maybe it did, but considering the film was unauthorized, you can hardly blame the Iraqi government for its nature. He also complained that the setting was undignified - a dark, dingy, crowded little basement. He would have preferred a more open, lighted area (the town square perhaps?). It would have given the picture better - I quote - production values. What universe do these people inhabit? Are they so completely clueless about the incredibly harsh, terrible conditions in the country they have torn apart? I imagine secrecy, expediency and safety played a bigger hand in choosing the location than production values. Sorry about that guys.

Now stop shedding tears over poor Saddam, and turn to more important matters like fixing that whole damned mess!

(Postscript: The art critic also referred to the cell phone video as a "snuff film". And I rewound the video three times to verify that Saddam was praying when he died - ewww, I'm a snuff film buf!)

New Years and Resolutions

The last time I made New Year's resolutions was four years ago. I have happily lost the list I wrote up that time, suffice to say it was such a spectacular failure that I swore off making resolutions ever since.
Well, for some reason, I was feeling very positive and ambitious, and so I decided to go for it again this year. The best part of resolutions is making them, and I have always loved planning and making lists. Though, I belong to the "This weekend I am going to fix my life" school of resolution makers, so the hardest part was restricting myself to something reasonable.
Fortunately, I have a new plan to deal with this habit of mine. It is the rule of 3: I would make no more than 3 resolutions for the new year. I spent a pleasant few hours trying to prune my laundry list of resolutions. Finally, I cheated a little by framing "goals" instead of "resolutions". Actually, it isn't a bad concept - I realized that several of my resolutions were related, and were action items aimed at fulfilling various life goals - career advancement, losing weight (never seen that on a new years resolution list before!) etc. So instead of making resolutions about individual actions, I set myself 3 very concrete, measurable goals - i.e. "lose X pounds" instead of "go to the gym everyday".
Now of course, you can't attain goals without a strategy. So I made out an action plan, consisting of 3 lifestyle changes per goal. You know,
"lose 50 pounds" by
a) going to gym everyday
b) eating celery for all meals
c) running a marathon
(No, that's just a deliberately exaggerated example for illustration purposes - I would never be so unrealistic, not since 2003!)

So I have 3 concrete goals for this year, and a strategy of 3 lifestyle changes each to achieve these goals. Excellent! Now for the bad news - I have effectively managed to slip a list of 9 resolutions past my stern rule of 3. Therefore, I had to prioritize (and stagger). I picked one lifestyle change from each category, and that's the one I will concentrate on first. Good, we're now down to 3 resolutions again, but only for the first couple of months. Then, I'll have to maintain these 3 resolutions and additionally, pick up the next 3. Sounds easy, right? What could go wrong? This is why I never managed to keep a New Year's resolution - no planning, no strategy. All it required was a few hours of careful thinking. Onward & upward!

Then, a couple of things happened over the weekend. First, I tried my hand at snowboarding in Tahoe - and discovered that I sucked. I sucked so bad, I sobbed over my snowboard and swore never to go near the snow again. But fortunately, there was a friend around who didn't think I should give up "so easily". So I was cajoled out on to the slopes again. I strapped on the board, and bounced my behind on the Sierras several more times. I didn't exactly conquer the mountain, but we called it a draw. Then, later in the evening, I discovered that I had made a mistake at work. Just how big a mistake, I'll find out when I go in to work next week. But in the best case, it is still a pretty bad mistake. I spent all evening feeling like there was a huge weight in my abdomen. My can-do, conquer the world spirit was shattered into a million pieces. Where on earth did I get off thinking I had it in me to do everything I was planning for next year?
And then it came home to me - the failure of past well meant resolutions was not caused by lack of planning. The reasons were far more pernicious - getting easily discouraged, and losing self confidence when things went wrong.

So my friends, if you wish to keep your resolutions (and I know you've made them) - here's my advice... Don't let temporary setbacks, the caprices of fate or even your own stupidity, hold you back. Get up, learn from your mistakes and try again. It ain't over till it's over. Oh, and find yourself a friend who won't let you give up on yourself.

Goodbye, and a happy new year to all. What are my resolutions for this year, you ask? Well, I think its like with birthday wishes - if you tell, they won't come true.

Don: To like or not to like?

I must admit - the idea of Shah Rukh Khan reinterpreting "Khaike Paan Benares wala" was what pulled me into the theatre. Could the undisputed star of today stand his own against the legend of yesterday?

And here, unfortunately, the movie disappoints. Shah Rukh is a great actor, but he rarely deigns to display his talent. Instead, he usually gives us the same simpering, dimpled, larger than life star that is Shah Rukh Khan. Don is no exception, and Shah Rukh hams his way through the movie - whether it's the deadly don on screen, or the naive dancer; what we see is only Shah Rukh Khan. I'm sorry, but not a candle can he hold to the original superstar. Don - 1, Don - 0.

As for the rest, Farhan Akhtar's intention was clearly to bring Don into the 21st century, a la Hollywood. Over the top action sequences, choreographed with today's fashionable disregard for physics, are sprinkled throughout the movie. As are all varieties of high tech gizmos, and the mandatory hot lady in the tight jumpsuit. Too often, all this slickness hinders the tale rather than helping it.

Fortunately, Farhan Akhtar also presents us with that rarest of rarities in hindi movies - a coherent, plausible plot, with almost no holes. The movie is a classic template for how remakes should be made. It updates the setting, making it relevant to today's world. It harkens back to the most loved parts of the original, keeping key dialogues and songs, infusing the movie with an aura of nostalgia. And just when you think you know what's coming next, it deviates from the original, and a new twist throws you off balance. Thus it always maintains its own personality and stands as an entertaining movie in its own right.

The original movie had a simple enough plot. There is the brilliant, sophisticated, ruthless mafia leader who knows no mercy. Then one day, the don meets his maker, but only one police officer knows of his death. So the police officer recruits a lookalike to take his place, a naive, unsophisticated, illiterate street performer. The police officer trains the street performer to shed his rude, illiterate ways, and act with the cool sophistication of the don. The street performer then takes the don's old place in the gang, risking his life to ferret out their secrets. But just at the moment of his triumph, when the police have arrested the whole gang on his tip-off, the one person who knows his true identity is killed. And the poor man is trapped in a nightmare, on the run from the police who don't believe his story and the criminals who do.
That was the USP of the original plot - an ordinary man in over his head, transported to a world far from his humble origins, and then trapped by a cruel twist of fate. The poignancy and drama of his situation, captured in that iconic song "Khaike Paan Benares wala".

Farhan Akhtar's Don wisely does not rely on twists copied from the original movie. It maintains plot fidelity for the most part. Kareena Kapoor sizzles through "Yeh mera dil" as she tries to avenge the death of her fiance, and Shah Rukh Khan sizes her up as he tells her - "You know the gun has no bullets, and I know the gun has no bullets, but the police don't know". Priyanka Chopra then takes on the role of avenger, in an Angelina Jolie-esque tough girl character. Shah Rukh Khan chooses to reprise his Baazigar crazy-dual personality as the don, while making little attempt to flesh out the good guy role. The first half sometimes feels like a recap, characters are brought in without proper introduction, events unfold rather hurriedly, without much background. The emphasis is on technical slickness and eye candy. But right before the intermission is a deviation from the story, the first hint that this is not just a slicked up carbon copy. The second half pays much more attention to plot. For once, main characters show street smarts when dealing with the villains, and get even rather than getting mad. If you can look past the ridiculously over-the-top rescue sequence, matched only by the suicidal escape, the second half plays out quite well. It builds up through a series of exciting stand-offs to a dramatic ending, that totally vindicates the movie.

In short, when the director is not trying to prove his Hollywood smarts with imaginative action sequences, sci-fic gadgetry and novel camerawork, it is actually quite a good movie.

I could write about the global significance of terrorism, but I cannot get my mind to step back and take the dispassionate bird's eye view this requires. Why? Because I am angry, I am furious - and my anger is aimed at the "government" of India. The terrorists are the enemy, these actions are what we expect of them. But the ones who let us down today are the same ones who let us down each time - those who are supposed to protect us. Let me tell you quite honestly, I am sick of hearing about the "spirit of Mumbai" and the "resilience of Mumbaikars". Those threadbare platitudes have worn thin.

The first time I heard these phrases was 13 years ago, when Dawood's henchmen set off serial bomb blasts at various sites of economic and symbolic significance in Mumbai. There were images of stockbrokers pulling bodies out of the Bombay stock exchange; commandeering private vehicles to take the injured to hospitals; working tirelessly and willingly to help their colleagues and business rivals. The next time I visited Bombay, I saw a billboard that said : March 12, 1993 : serial bomb blasts rock Bombay. March 13, 1993 : 99% attendance in offices. Salaam Bombay! That brought tears to my eyes. There was no questioning the strong, resilient spirit of Bombay.

Last year, Bombay suffered through an unprecedented torrent of rain - 37 inches in 24 hours. More than a thousand people died. Millions, literally millions, were stranded - in offices, on train stations, on the road, in buses. I anxiously followed the story over that modern marvel, the internet. The horror stories poured in, but they were drowned out by the inspiring stories that came out. The whole city came together in this moment of crisis, and formed one gigantic volunteer organization. Everybody from slum dwellers in rags to middle class moms lined the roads to help stranded travellers trekking home through miles of flooded streets. Some brought food and water to the exhausted travellers, others pointed out dangerous patches in the road and recommended safer paths. Many helped trapped passengers escape from buses and cars, some even opened their homes so the commuters could rest and freshen up before continuing the long journey. Web sites created impromptu information centers; message boards on which people posted and sought information; contacted concerned family members, I even remember a news site organizing a citizen rescue operation after they got a desperate call for help from a stranded passenger on a double decker bus. Truly, the "spirit of Mumbai" was in full force, it was an awe inspiring display of comradeship and humanity.

So then what am I complaining about? Let me tell you.. the reports today said that upto 30 mins after the bomb blasts, no police were on the scene. Passengers on the trains, volunteers, were dragging bodies out of the wreckage, were bundling injured people off to hospitals in rickshaws. It is wonderful that they did it - but it is atrocious that they had to! Ofcourse I understand that such a situation would overwhelm any city's infrastructure, nor do I blame the police or firemen. They have the same "spirit" as everyone else in Bombay and they did the best they could with the tools they have. But their best is just not good enough. When will we wake up and smell the sewage? Roads riddled with potholes, dams bursting, emergency services that take half an hour to respond to an emergency (not to mention a "disaster relief agency" that couldnt convene because of the disaster)? And this is the most modern, richest city in India! So much for India Shining.

The wonderful Mumbaikars come together in extraordinary displays of courage and selflessness because they know they have to. They know the system can't be relied on, they know the disaster relief is a joke. They know if they don't step up and help, no one will. And so they take on all those roles the government has abdicated - rescue workers, emergency services, ambulance drivers. Then they pick up the pieces and go home - and watch the politicians praise their "resilience" on TV. Enough resilience, enough going on with life as usual. How about some outrage? How about stopping and saying that things are different, life isnt the same? The crux of a democracy is accountability - if we let the politicians act like nothing's happened, they will. We have to put our collective foot down and demand action. Two hundred of us were killed - in a cowardly act of terrorism. We want the culprits brought to justice, the real culprits, not some low level stool pigeons. Stop taking things lying down - enough is enough. Say that Mumbai is done tolerating - it wants justice!