After making sure I was within the legal limit of sleepiness for operating a piece of computer equipment, I sat at my desk and opened up my note book (the real life dead tree one that I write my ideas in). Sure enough there were a good handful of article ideas, at least a couple of which I could tackle without too much research or other preliminaries.

After creating a new folder on the computer, I paused to ask myself what programme I would use to do the writing. This was a valid question because I was working on my Linux computer which has only the minimal software installs and only a simple text editor on its drive. Text editors are fine with me, in fact I mostly use plain old Notepad for most of my writing in Windows anyway. Still, what would I do to double check my spelling? I’d held back on installing AbiWord hoping there would be a lighter solution, but what was it? Thinking that I might as well find out, I went on line.

I looked for Linux text editors with spell check facilities and Google spewed out its usual smorgasbord of mostly related information. Random blog posts, the home pages of actual software projects. Hold on! Can’t I get a spell checker for my current text editor? I typed “geany spell check” into the search box and off went the spiders. Aha! There is a plugin, but it was only version 0.2. That didn’t sound very encouraging. Also, it needed to be compiled or packaged or one of those things, and I wasn’t feeling adventurous. Oh well, back to more general searches then.

Soon I stumbled upon a shoot out between 9 different Linux text editors on ComputerWorld. Wow, so many pages of information. I began to skim. Hey! That one seemed better than the last one, got a much higher score too. No wait, this one is much lower. And what’s this? After testing the most bloated programmer IDE type thing towards the end the writer still wasn’t happy? Why are human beings never satisfied with what they have? Unsatisfied, I clicked away.

As I searched some more, I came across a text editor called Cream, which is available for Windows and Linux. That’s always a useful combination. Macs have never really attracted me anyway. So I went to their site looked at the features and the messy but cool screenshots of multi-coloured code in white windows(geek pornography). Finally ending on their downloads page I saw they had some sort of source download package. No Arch Linux specific package. Not a surprise, that’s the price you pay for not going with one of the most popular 4-5 distros.

So now I searched for “cream arch linux” and found a listing that pointed to the Arch User Repository. No no that’s too much work. Wait, let me see if I can install it directly with the package manager. So I fired up a command line window, signed up as root and tried get Pacman(The Arch Linux package manager) to do the needful. Not found. I guess I needed to go back and download the repository manually. Browsing through the page I came across some related content and WordNet caught my attention. It’s a desktop dictionary, not just a spelling text file, but an actual dictionary with meanings and synonyms and everything. Yes! I definitely needed that. I have the excellent TheSage on my Windows install but I couldn’t possibly write anything on Linux without a proper dictionary to look up occasionally. Once again, I wondered if it was available in the official repository though Pacman.

It wasn’t, so now I had two pieces of software to get from the user repository and compile and package myself, before I could install them. Hold on, how do you do that? I’d only done it once before with XNView and that was weeks ago. I couldn’t remember. Click-click-click, lets see what the Arch linux wiki has to say. What’s this, support software for Pacman to access the user repositories? Aah, that should be convenient. What the hell is Yaourt?! Let’s see, it’s supposed to do what I want but it needs to be compiled itself first. Brilliant! Chicken and egg here. Wait there are instructions. They sounded simple. But why not try the procedure out on the software I actually want to install anyway?

Click click. Downloaded all these tar.gz file. What are these png and desktop files for? Probably icons for the install. Just got everything and dumped them in a folder. Ok. Followed the instructions and tried to make the WordNet package. What’s this error? I don’t know this stuff. Hold on, let me try to put it all under the same folder. Aha! It worked. I am a genius! I can make computers stop printing lots of lines of red text! Ok type in the command and pressed enter. Scrolling gibberish … scrolling gibberish … What! Error again? Dependencies not found? Tk and Tcl! Can someone please stop calling things with random alphabets. We’re going to be all out of alphabets soon. Damn it I’d avoided installing Tk and Tcl for so long, trying to keep my system lean and mean. Hmm (stroking beard), what would Captain Kirk say at a time like this, I wondered. “It’s a Woman!” No! That doesn’t help. Or does it? (stroked beard some more)

You know what? This beard was way too long for me to maintain my cool dishevelled bohemian look, mingled with a touch of educated class. I had to shave, or trim it at least. I got off the chair. Where is that trimmer anyway? Walk walk walk. Couldn’t see it anywhere. I must have missed it in the bed room. No, wasn’t there either. There it was! Right where I should have looked in the first place. Ok batteries were needed. There were a pair lying about that seemed to have enough juice to make me beautiful again .. but not too beautiful. So, I was off for a shave.

Why was that computer screen on? Oh never mind. I would get back to fixing Linux issues later. And I hadn’t even checked my email yet, or my Facebook, or my Twitter, or my other email address, or my other one. Standing in front of the mirror I tried to act all dignified and switched on the trimmer, its metallic buzz echoed on the ceramic tiles. I tried to visualise how exactly bearded and dishevelled I need to be to really look like a convincing writer on the inside back cover of a bestseller. “Writer!” I shouted out loud. My short term memory suddenly kicked back in as I stared at myself wide-eyed in the mirror.

And then the batteries died on me.

Samir

Events, festivals, and celebrations are excellent knots along the infinite thread of life. For human beings lost without a frame of reference in unending time, they serve as good reminders to think, to thank, and to re-evaluate our existence. But while habits can be a force for good, they can also be the end of consideration and thought.

I can say without slipping into nostalgia that most human interaction during celebratory times has been reduced to the perfunctory. Not because we care less, but because we take it upon ourselves to show and prove that we care for so many more people.

The signs have always been around but the technologies were more primitive. The obligatory greeting card was probably an early sign; Hundreds of identical facsimiles of caring thoughts sprayed across the world in an indiscriminate barrage of societal spam. At what point did people stop sending special cards to special people? At what point did people stop bothering to even write a personal message on each individual card?

I recently received a New Years greeting card from a business contact. When I say contact, I mean an organisation I have had dealings with, so I am now on their mailing list. The envelope was branded and impersonal, the design was non-committal, and even the personal signature was a digitally reproduced copy. A bland photograph of some anonymous flowers, extracted from their surroundings and unceremoniously dumped onto a dull neutral colour background with expectedly fanciful text in gold that said: Season’s Greetings. When did we dilute ourselves to this state? Not only can we not commit to personal communications, but even our mass bulletins can’t commit to a mood or a message, or even a specific celebration, lest we offend someone with the wrong wish. How can anyone be offended by someone wishing them a Merry Christmas, or a Happy Diwali, even if they do not actively celebrate its rituals? When did we become so sensitive, so senseless, and so inhuman?

Turning that on its head though, it never ceases to amaze me how many festival-specific mass messages even someone as socially marginal as me can receive. The mobile phone, email address books, and databases of every kind have given us the inalienable right to carpet bomb every unsuspecting contact on our list with anonymously targeted heartfelt wishes about random events. Events I am not going to be even vaguely celebrating, or interested in are beamed into my radar, never thinking whether it is a fitting or appropriate message to send me in particular. After all, nothing is being sent to me in particular but rather broadcast into that great unknown filled with seemingly unknown people. From major festivals to minor skirmishes at the local club, all are deemed precisely suited for my attention, and so I am duly informed.

Our means of communication have blossomed but our words and feelings have withered. While you can now keep in constant up-to-the-minute contact with acquaintances you would not meet for years in the old world, all you have gained is that you can now say very little to them on a continuing basis. Most of what goes on can barely pass off as communication. Computers on a network can ping each other, through which they exchange some very basic information and confirm the existence and proper functioning of each other. Human beings can now poke, nudge, (insert proprietary social network term here) each other to death without ever saying anything or actually communicating anything.

This is an abstraction of human exchanges down to the level of media. Most of us feel it imperative to read the daily gossip, also sometimes referred to as The News. It tells us very little, leaves out a lot, and teaches nothing. For a standard social conversation amongst all of us pretending to be “in the know” it is sufficient to know enough to vaguely say that the current stock market picture is bad, but it doesn’t require us to actually know what we are talking about, or what that actually means. These are just kisses in the air, designed to carry on a mutually contrived charade. We have advanced enough to expand this official gossip mongering to our family, friends, neighbours, acquaintances, and complete strangers, all of whom we are now obliged to label friends lest we hurt anyone’s feelings by being more specific. Also, they must number in the thousands for us to be considered relevant.

Since the art of communication with any substance seems to be losing ground the only solution is for people to start sharing some good old fashioned experiences. Not this digitally-enhanced winking match across an auditorium, but real life shared memories, and strangely enough for this we might need to turn to that much maligned idea: ritual.

I’m no fan of ritual either, especially in the obligatory religious ritual or the ritual sacrifice way. But, shared activities celebrated in a good natured feeling of fun I’m all for. Having just stepped into the new year and after having a quiet new years eve, a childhood memory came back to me. Growing up near an old church in Bombay with a healthy local community of devout Christians and a healthy mixture of every other kind of person, both devout and otherwise, meant I experienced some interesting exchanges of ritual. One that sticks in my head was the burning of the old man on the last night of the year.

On New Years Eve, the children and the young at heart from the neighbourhood went from door to door collecting old clothes and newspapers and a effigy of an old man was fashioned. He was dressed in donated hand-me-downs, stuffed with the stale news of the bygone year and all decked up for his gruesome end on a large bonfire just before midnight. If people were feeling really adventurous, some money would be collected, coconuts and other ingredients would be bought, and a large community preparation of some magical coconut sweet treat would be concocted in collective celebration. I remember whole coconuts dropped into the live fire being especially prized as an after-party delicacy. Most, child and adult alike, were sucked into the childish frenzy of the night. I’m pretty sure the ritual was born out of the Christian community and while I’m not sure what its origins are, I am glad to know that it survives to some extent at least, and that I’m not the only one who remembers it.

I do not consider myself a technophobe. If anything, quite the opposite. But perhaps because I understand the strengths and limitations of technology, I know that databases are no replacement for memories. The burning of the old man is something I had forgotten for a long time, but the renewed memory has brought back many others and I will share an automatic bond with anyone else who has similar memories. This real human connection is something that is being diluted if we surrender our lives to databases. The lists of contacts we send our mass SMSs to, the list of addresses we send random emails to, the list of friends we think we share our lives with in abrupt little status messages and empty pokes. All these databases are a means to an end: human contact. Try not to forget that that involves actual humans and real contact.

The next time you get the urge to send off one of those form new years greeting cards, consider burning the old man of the year and bringing in the new year over your own version of a crackling flame with real people instead. You may not be able to fit in 2000 of them into your plan, but at least you will remember them well, and you will all remember the night together.

Samir

Libraries and bookshops might be great places to meet people, but I fear sexual equality is in peril in these houses of intellect and tripe. I was at the biggest mall in the world yesterday, and in it is one of the largest bookshops I’ve had the pleasure of losing myself in, Kinokuniya. Yesterday was part of the Eid holidays here in Dubai, so we were there trying to consume time in the largest possible chunks. What better place to do that than a book shop that never ends?

Having casually browsed through the bestsellers, pored over the spines at astronomy, ogled at science-fiction, and muttered gypsy protection hexes near the sports section, I found myself rambling through one of those smorgasbord general-interest areas (might have been self-help, health, or any one of the completely meaningless subgenres) when I saw a bright blue cover on the top shelf that attracted my wandering eye.

The book had a large overly-photoshopped image of a wedding ring on the cover, and its kitsch typography announced: How To Marry A Multi-millionaire: The Ultimate Guide To High Net Worth Dating. Cool! I thought in my head. I could have said it aloud, of course, but I had already scared enough people by doing that at regular intervals near the comic section. So I held back. I picked it up, took a cursory glance at the back matter and then flipped through, scanning titles, chapter headings, and random snippets of body text. If I was a melodramatic person, the blood might have drained from my face, my hands might have trembled, my mouth gone dry. None of those things happened, but I was appalled!

Here was a book that purported to help you find your perfect rich mate. I had no problem with that. It was trying to tell you how to circulate in all the right company to meet your goal. Nice to see a thorough manuscript. And it even went so far as to indicate how to change yourself to be specifically attractive to the money bags you were going after. Excellent! But wait, what’s this?! “Meet your knight in the shining Gulf Stream?” “How to get on the High Net Worth dating circuit where most single multi-millionaires meet their wives?!” I don’t want to be a millionaire’s wife! I’m not that broad minded, thank you very much! It was only after a few moments of mental turmoil that I realised the book was automatically assuming I was of the fairer sex.

That’s just wrong, I thought. After all, we’ve come so far in the whole sexual equality race. Professional barriers are becoming less rigid, the kind of behaviour that is considered appropriate for the different sexes is becoming less defined, so why in this temple of knowledge must I be shunned so?

I went to book shops because I thought all the reason and balance of the world resided there. After all, was not the collection of thrillers featuring male adolescent fantasy heroines perfectly complemented by the pastel coloured hordes of the bustier-busting latin lover novels? Were not the millions of pages of literature supposedly written by sports personalities balanced finely by the miles of shelf space sacrificed to the glossy female media personalities who could do such fascinating things as gluing sea shells to vases while cooking dinner for 63, and sexually satisfying their husbands in the kitchen at the same time? Were there not alarmingly more naked skinless men on drawing anatomy book covers than naked skinless women just to make up for the indignity of the very existence of Pamela Anderson? Why then should this precise balance be broken by the brazen discrimination against men in the lucrative career of holy matrimony? I’m not sure whether this is insulting to women for automatically assuming all millionaires are men, or insulting to men for insinuating they can’t make it with millionaire women. This is an insult to humanity itself!

Moving on from the offending book, I wandered through the vast and wondrous design and architecture section, settling down between photography and the shelf with the naked skinless people on the covers. I was still troubled by my encounter with the glowing blue book though. You must understand, as a member of urban humanity, I am entitled to outrage and entitled to feel entitlement itself. It matters little what the balanced facts of the matter are when it comes to my personal perceptions of suffering and persecution. Who cares how many women in the world suffer in silence? Who cares how many men and women suffer domestic violence? Who cares if the majority of sexual assault goes unreported? I am a clinically entitled and perpetually outraged member of modern society, and considering the current economic downturn, I want to be a gold digger too, damn it!

Samir

I had a very disturbing vision last night. In a deep reverie between consciousness and sleep I was abruptly transported into the cavernous interiors of the latest largest mall in town, Dubai Mall, which I recently visited. There on the obscene Olympic-size ice rink, bathed in the shifting neon glow of the giant LED screen looming over it, I saw a stampede of teenagers gathered. They were the cool kind of teenager, with their hair spiked just so, and their ill fitting jeans draped around their over-sized sports shoes just so. A murmur filled the air, and when I pushed through the uniform horde to listen in to what they were talking about, I was shocked.

Any self-respecting members of a crowd scene like this should have been saying the word rhubarb over and over again to themselves (classic movie method to create that crowd sound), but in stead they all stared at each other with an implying look and whispered, “Considering the current economic climate …”. It was an eerie scene to be sure, but I wondered what it was about it that truly turned my stomach, besides the bad hair. After all, shouldn’t I be pleased that the young adults of today participate in mature discourse about world economic realities … even if only in my imagination? No it wasn’t that. Then, it struck me, what bothered me the most was that the phrase “considering the current economic climate …” doesn’t mean anything.

Perfunctory social talk is absolute evil. In mindlessness, it is second only to reality television, and that too not by a large margin. In most times there are standard phrases and sentences that most people exchange to make conversation without having anything to say — a passing comment on the weather, a sufficiently troubled statement about the state of traffic on the roads, a generalised remark about a common acquaintance. In most times, however, these fragmentary verbal rituals are limited to a specific groups of people with something in common. Not any more.

You will be pleased to know that the romantic notion of people coming together in a crisis is true. The ongoing world financial crisis has brought together one and all across every geographical, cultural, racial, and sexual divide, in their collective inanity, to say in chorus as a universal panacea to aimless conversations: “Considering the current economic climate …” And there they stop, for to venture any further would be to reveal the lack of any point to the statement. What does that phrase mean really? Does it mean the economic situation is bad? Slow? Passable? Disastrous? Couldn’t you have said “Considering the current economic climate …”, with a dramatic pause to follow, just as effectively at the height of the Dot Com madness of the 1990’s?

Maybe it’s not too much of a mystery as to why the world is going through a recession. It is because of our collective culture of pretence. We need to pretend to be so much more than we are, to have so much more than we have, both in the realms of financial and mental resources. It would be remiss for any modern educated capitalistic citizen of the planet to suggest to the horde that they work to grow either asset. No, why grow when you can borrow? And so it comes to pass that paupers live like kings, and the ignorant parade around their social circles wowing their equally ignorant audience with tantalizing promises of borrowed wisdom such as, “Considering the current economic climate …”. Eventually, of course, the Emperor’s lack of clothing will be pointed out, and thus the advanced consumerist culture we have orchestrated stands today: obese, imbecilic, and stark naked in the winter breeze.

I have come across more than a few articles in recent publications that begin with the masterpiece of a phrase in question, and needless to say, conversations overheard in places both public and private have followed suit. My output on this site has been a bit sparse lately, mainly because I was out of town on a holiday, busy with paper work to do with business, and various other distractions. But why complicate explanations? Let me join my planetary brethren in their collective wisdom to simply say: I could have kept up with my writing, and been more regular on this blog, but considering the current economic climate …

Samir

These exemplary individuals would have me believe that they have the answers — the answers to every human question, and the key to all that haunts me. All it would require of me would be to accept their view of the world and existence as they know it — an existence filled with cloak, dagger, and bickering – an existence where everyone is a lousy human being except me, and them, of course, because they must be exemplary to tell me what I am doing wrong on such a conveniently regular basis. They must have all their worldly affairs in perfect clockwork order to advise me on what my actions lack, and they must be perfect employees, perfect citizens, perfect parents, perfect siblings, and perhaps even perfect human beings to have the leisure to find and point out my hourly blunders.

I am thankful for such incessant support towards my moral betterment. For I know that I am flawed, and I know I have no answers, only questions. Questions that I ask myself to find my way and decide on right, wrong, and grey. Being such a habitual questioner, where would I be without their distrust, their insecurities, their fears, and their sludge-tinted glasses? Where would I be without their truth?

Perhaps I would never settle into the delusion of knowing all the answers and all the questions. Perhaps I would never stumble upon the misconception of knowing everyone’s motivations, their scheming plots, their twisted minds, and their sordid plans for my downfall. Perhaps I would take nothing or no one for granted, and perhaps I would even find myself on that illusive dirt track through the lush forest of life called happiness, without ever expecting to reach a hidden palace of the same name.

Perhaps I will abstain from their truths, because as seductive as the answers are, I do not like what they say. I prefer my questions. I prefer my complex chaos of illusive knowledge than their convenient truths — truths that would raise me to their level of superiority, from where I could look down and survey the world without ever needing to study my countenance in the mirror. I prefer the agony of staring at my imperfect features and striving to higher humanity than the path to wisdom and preeminence that they tantalizingly lay before me.

I do not want to be that person.
Do you?

Samir

I really need to learn to take my own advice about getting things done. Wait! Hold the presses, I see a new post in this: “How to Take Your Own Advice in 13 Easy Steps”. Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant. I dazzle myself sometimes.

I’ve been back in Dubai from my trip to Bombay for a good many days now. Every since then I have been planning on my grand comeback post. I’m guessing you have gotten to the realisation that I haven’t written it yet. The task of writing that perfect and (in my mind) ever growing post finally seemed so improbable that I decided to just get it over with and write the afterword of sorts that I had planned for that post.

In short, I wanted to inform all you wonderful people out there that I’m back. As some of you have mentioned, I do plan on writing much more about my trip and various things about India. It’s quite an inspirational place really, and it always fills me with a million good ideas. Unfortunately my trips there rarely give me time for relaxed writing stints, and once I’m back here and do have the time, the buzz of India isn’t there to spur me on anymore. Purely an excuse, I know, but true none the less. What life in Dubai is sorely in need of, is life.

But write we must, because what else is there? So, once I mange to kick myself out of my hibernating huddle I plan, nay, I promise to write a whole bunch of articles about the trip and the many days I was silent. My story of a bus ride still remains to be continued and completed. Besides that one, I will also be writing these:

• The Perils and Promise of the Great Indian Binge
• Manifesto of a Social Malcontent
• What You Can Learn By Staking Out a Small Bank
• Memories Incorporated
… and perhaps even others that I haven’t named or planned yet. Hopefully, I can do more than just recap throughout the coming weeks and also slot in some fresh content. Stay tuned!

It’s strange how much fun writing can be (as it is now while I type this), and also how completely (but secretly) scared you can be to start, to commit, to write the first sentence. But write we must, because what else is there?

Samir

]]> http://samirbharadwaj.com/blog/im-back-and-my-dog-ate-my-homework/feed/ 2 http://samirbharadwaj.com/blog/the-latest-trends-in-metal-mining-holidays/ http://samirbharadwaj.com/blog/the-latest-trends-in-metal-mining-holidays/#comments Tue, 22 Jan 2008 19:07:12 +0000 Samir Bharadwaj http://samirbharadwaj.com/blog/the-latest-trends-in-metal-mining-holidays/

Greetings to my long suffering regular readers and all you fresh faces who might have stumbled upon this blog during this extended silence. I’m on a holiday in Mumbai. Sort of.

A break has been in the offing for months now, but it was postponed many times for various reasons. Now it has finally come to be but for more practical reasons than relaxation. A few years ago my Father had a fall for which he needed some serious hardware surgically added to a bone in his leg. Recently this old implant had started causing some problems and it was time to have it removed. So, this trip came about more as a medical mission than a vacation.

All the metal is now out, and it was the mining of it that kept me busy and this blog silent for the past few weeks. The Father is now doing fine and has given birth to a bouncing baby hardware store. It truly is astonishing how much metal it takes to shore up just a small section of the femur. It makes me marvel at the strength and design of human bones with renewed fervour.

That’s my story for the day. I hope to be less delinquent in my writing and my replying to your comments over the coming days, but then I am supposed to be on a holiday and you know how unpredictable those can be.

Samir

]]> http://samirbharadwaj.com/blog/the-latest-trends-in-metal-mining-holidays/feed/ 8 http://samirbharadwaj.com/blog/im-still-alive-and-i-have-books/ http://samirbharadwaj.com/blog/im-still-alive-and-i-have-books/#comments Sun, 30 Dec 2007 07:33:23 +0000 Samir Bharadwaj http://samirbharadwaj.com/blog/im-still-alive-and-i-have-books/ Yes it is true. The rumours of my disappearance in a freak alien invasion or my retirement into the mountains of Antarctica are greatly exaggerated. I am still alive, but this blog has been a bit dead for a while — more hibernating really. I thought it was only fair to say hello to my growing tribe of RSS and email subscribers (Greetings!), who I like to narcissistically imagine as hanging on to my every digital word.

As Vishal has so colourfully explained, we’ve been a bit busy with a small archaeological dig within the confines of our home. The layers were many, the sediments rich, and the finds extraordinary. To say I’m a bit of a bibliophile would be a gross understatement. While I’m sure there are many with a larger and more extensive stash of books than I have, I assure you the only reason for that is that I hold myself back for practical reasons. All those books need somewhere to be put, and sedimentary layers are not the best storage system. Once that minor organisational glitch is solved, you just try and stop me from accumulating the largest collection of completely insignificant tomes that I absolutely adore.

While all this reorganisation was in progress, my online activities languished greatly. Unfortunately, I can’t say my house and my books are now in order, but domestic archaeology is very hard work. For a lack of energy and time I had to stop, and the last few days have been spent introducing my visiting cousin to the wonders and horrors of the maddest “metropolis” on Earth: Dubai. The good part of that, besides the company, has been some decent photographs which I will make sure I share with all of you here some time soon.

In the meantime, fear not, brave readers. This delinquent shall be back soon to expand your minds, entertain your senses, menace society, and ruin your children in an infinite number of easy steps. Stay tuned, thank you for your patience, and wishing you a wonderful holiday season.

Samir

]]> http://samirbharadwaj.com/blog/im-still-alive-and-i-have-books/feed/ 2 http://samirbharadwaj.com/blog/most-boring-desktop-in-the-known-universe/ http://samirbharadwaj.com/blog/most-boring-desktop-in-the-known-universe/#comments Sun, 30 Sep 2007 10:41:10 +0000 Samir Bharadwaj http://samirbharadwaj.com/blog/most-boring-desktop-in-the-known-universe/ I got tagged! Me! Who has studiously avoided all contact with the civilised world, who has carefully skated around viral link campaigns, and skipped over get-linked-quick schemes. What do I do … what do I do?? I guess the time of reckoning has arrived. Forest Parks was brave enough to tag me with the What’s on your desktop? meme. So, it would seem the game is up, and now I shall have to share with the world the shameful reason why I have been so anti-social and so removed from the buzz of the blogosphere (this is besides writing some of the longest posts, which no one could be bothered to read ). The fact is:

I have the MOST boring desktopâ„¢ in the Known Universe!!!



There! The truth is now known and it cannot be taken back. It’s quite a relief really … living all these years in isolation, and hiding in the shadows for fear of ridicule and social persecution have been tiring. Now I can breath the free air and walk amongst the trees and the birds. I can finally live a normal life, get a job, buy a car, eat junk food, and make fun of people with funny accents, because a huge burden has now been lifted from my heart, and I am the happier for it.

I am free.

[TAG STARTS HERE]

My Desktop Free View Instruction:

A. Upon receiving this tag, immediately perform a screen capture of your desktop. It is best that no icons be deleted before the screen capture so as to add to the element of fun.

You can do a screen capture by: [1] Going to your desktop and pressing the Print Scrn key (located on the right side of the F12 key). [2] Open a graphics program (like Picture Manager, Paint, or Photoshop) and do a Paste (CTRL + V). [3] If you wish, you can “edit” the image, before saving it.

For MAC users: Press [ Apple] [ Ctrl ] [ Shift ] and [ 3 ]

B. Post the picture in your blog. You can also give a short explanation on the look of your desktop just below it if you want. You can explain why you preferred such look or why is it full of icons. Things like that.

C. Tag five of your friends and ask them to give you a Free View of their desktop as well.

D. Add your name to this list of Free Viewers with a link pointing directly to your Desktop Free View post to promote it to succeeding participants.

List of those who have participated:
Francine of La Place de Cherie
Chez Francine
Bloggishi
Unchained Melody
LadyJava’s Lounge
Mariuca
Revellian Dot Com|Desktop
iRonnie
Rebecca
Jon
Rolando
Speedcat
Brown Baron
Tish
Mike
Money Online
NoDirectOn
Max
Elena’s Photos
Comedy Plus
MeAndMyDrum
The Random Forest
Samir Bharadwaj

add yours here after doing this tag.

[TAG ENDS HERE]

I pass on the tagedelic coolness to:
Vishal — because nepotism is a good thing.
Jon Anderson — because he owns a cool toaster.
Jimbo — because he paid me.
Julie Anne Bonner — because she can’t possible be too busy for this .
Rebecca Dean — because I came across her interesting blog yesterday and thought, “Why not?”

Samir

]]> http://samirbharadwaj.com/blog/most-boring-desktop-in-the-known-universe/feed/ 7 http://samirbharadwaj.com/blog/how-to-start-a-conversation-with-an-urban-indian/ http://samirbharadwaj.com/blog/how-to-start-a-conversation-with-an-urban-indian/#comments Mon, 23 Jul 2007 19:16:26 +0000 Samir Bharadwaj http://samirbharadwaj.com/blog/how-to-start-a-conversation-with-an-urban-indian/

After a lifetime of observation, study, and first-hand sociological research, I have finally distilled the complex art of conversation in urban India down to a simple formula. I am very proud of my achievement.

How to start a conversation with an urban Indian is a matter of paramount importance in the current world economic climate. Along with being one of the quickest growing economies, India has the largest English speaking population this side of Neptune. This makes English conversations, which is what I assume most readers of this blog would be interested in, more of a viable option. It’s not all for the betterment of the world through the rampant spread of the ideal free market economy though. These conversation skills have a more basic and human utility.

In the age old quest for universal brotherhood, cross cultural understanding, and getting your IT staff to fix your computer quickly during an emergency, you really need to figure out how to start a conversation with the Indians that you are bound to find around you. After all, there are a lot of us — every sixth person in the world or something like that.

These new-found conversation techniques should also come in handy should you choose to make small talk with that strange sounding individual you always speak to when you call your ISP help line. He insists his name is Bob, but you’re pretty sure he’s actually Andy, which is what he calls himself when you call your credit card help line. Maybe this mysterious cloak and dagger story of schizophrenia intrigues you and you really would like to get to know this loveable psycho better. If this is your situation, these tips are just the thing you need.

But, in case all this talk of striking up conversations with those crazy Indians is alienating the 1/6th of you who are my cohorts in the great Indian experiment, fear not. I just realised that the people most in need of instructions for talking to Indians are other Indians. In case you haven’t picked up on these tricks yet over many family get-togethers and festival celebrations, my step-by-step formula will allow you to become an Instant hit at any Indian party.

Now without further ado, let us move on to the steps in this conversation technique:

Step 1 : Name-drop

The key to any good conversation with an urban Indian is one good name. A bunch of good names would be even better because then you can prolong the conversation almost indefinitely. A good name in this context is the name of any individual who has seemingly made it big in the world. Money, power and riches are usually a good indicator of their suitability.

Common friends, aquaintance, and colleagues are the best fodder, but public personalities can also act as a good starting point. You could use any one from around the world, but you’re sure to have more luck and a longer conversation if you happen to keep a mental database of Indian personalities in mind for this purpose. You see, Indians like to think the entire universe was programmed to eventually give birth to the average Indian as the pinnacle of its achievement. We’re exactly like Americans in that way.

Once you have made your choice, casually drop in the name into the conversation in some fitting context.

Step 2 : Say the magic words

No, abracadabra doesn’t quite cut it in this situation. Although, if you ever try it I would very much appreciate a report on the results that follow.

The magic words in the art of urban Indian conversation are these: “He/She is doing very well“. This of course is in reference to the person chosen in the first step. Often your partner in conversation might say these words first, but in case they don’t, they are the mandatory beginnings of any lasting social discourse. Keep in mind that doing well here usually refers to a good job, financial situation or other material success.

Step 3 : Present proof

Present a factoid as to why said person is doing well. Do they have a great job, an obscene salary, royal benefits, enviable investments or simply offspring who have the immense talent and mental dexterity to say “I do” at their pre-ordained nuptials? Any of these will suffice, and the more detailed and exclamatory you can get the better.

Think of this as the competitive “did you know” phase of this conversation. Once an interesting believe-it-or-not fact is exhausted, let your conversational opponent counter with his move, or return to step 2. That is unless all known impressive statements about the person in question have been made already. If there are no more facts to give go back to Step 1 and start anew.

The programming savvy among you will recognise this series of steps to be a nested loop. There is an outer process involving each new name dropped in the conversation, and within that is an inner loop involving the magic words supported by impressive facts.

And there you have it, the deceptively simple 3-step process to carrying out a conversation with the average urban Indian. If you find this process to be satisfying and educational, I am glad I could be of help. On the other hand if you think this whole thing is daft, I am sorry to inform you that you’re not going to make a whole lot of average Indian friends. If you are exceedingly lucky, you might actually come in contact with one of the members of the minority Indian underground resistance, who might give subtle hints as to their true feelings about this sort of banter. The stifled yawn and the rolling of the eyes are common signs.

If you happen to come across this sort of person, STOP and pay attention! You have just stumbled upon a sentient sub-continental life form. Record this observation and don’t lose the specimen in the crowd. Take down their phone number, tag them with a GPS tracking device, do whatever it takes to keep in touch. Either that or study my formula for how to start conversations with urban Indians over and over again, until it becomes second nature and you slip into it naturally when put into a social situation.

You’re going to need it when marauding bands of turban wearing IT personnel go on a rampage in the future. They will ride their decorated elephants into every major capital city around the globe, and then proceed to take over the world in one gigantic song-and-dance sequence!

You might laugh now but that time will come. Mark my words, that time will come.

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