Telephone behind a glass partition

Intelligence ∝ Wheels

December 3rd, 2008 Roshan

Most two-wheeler motorists are poor drivers. This is something that’s easy to ascertain from the disproportionate number of deaths that involve a two-wheeler with something other than a heavy vehicle or a car. This is also the reason that whenever I hear about a young man not wearing a helmet who got killed by a car, I know who’s responsible. Not wearing a helmet is just one symptom of the typical illusion that two-wheeler motorists live in.

Driving a car badly is harder than driving a motorcycle badly, for the following reasons:

• A car is automatically limited by the space available — meaning no swerving between other vehicles, and in between bumpers to gain 0.7 of a second.
• When the vehicle in front of you stops, if you’re a car driver, you stop. If you’re a motorcyclist, you turn your front wheel in one direction (usually right) and try switching lanes, stopping only when a car driver frantically brakes and honks.
• If a car ever collides with anything, it’s the drivers fault. If a two-wheeler ever collides with anything, it’s usually blamed on what the two-wheeler collides with. Except for the one situation where the two-wheeler slams right bang between the two tail-lights, splitting your licence plate in two.
• You need to have a certain amount of money to buy a car, either through your parents or by your own work. While this does not preclude the possibility of a boorish rich driver, those are less likely to exist than the college going imbecile
• Cars corner better than motorcycles.
• Cars are more easily damaged by minor incidents than motorcycles — a car and a bike scrape, and the bike gets off with no damage nearly

Now, I have never claimed to be an exceptional driver myself, but I have never driven in a manner that is likely to kill myself or another. And besides, going “Tu Quoque” isn’t accepted any more. To illustrate, I have created a colourful drawing for you all to see the difference between the way a car driver takes a corner and the way a motorcyclist does so. The legend for the yellow line should be ‘lane marker’, but I forgot and I’m not going to change it because I can’t make it fit now anyway.

Are you a motorcyclist? To find out if you, too, are an idiot, answer these questions — if you answer yes, add those points to your score:

• Do you have a helmet? (-3 points)
• Have you removed your rear-view mirrors? (6 points)
• Do you put your foot on another vehicle to be pulled along? (6 points)
• Do you use your signal lights? (-6 points)
• Do you take great pride in travelling 50+ km/h in rush-hour traffic? (9 points)
• Have you been involved in motorcycle accidents with another motorcycle or in accidents where you were violating a law? (6 points)
• Do you ever use the pavement when the roads are jammed? (6 points)
• Is your licence invalid? (9 points)
• Do you have insurance (-3 points)
• You are in the left most lane. The car in the lane to your right is slowly moving forward to close the gap between it and the stationary vehicle in front of it. Do you accelerate and switch to that lane? (9 points)
• You are in the left most lane, right behind an auto-rickshaw. Traffic is moving at a steady 30 km/h. The auto-rickshaw stops. Do you turn your front wheel to the right and try to poke into the lane to your right? (12 points) Do you stop your vehicle in the same lane and look at your mirrors before making your next move? (-6 points)
• The light is red. There doesn’t seem to be anyone coming anywhere near the intersection in the direction that it is green for. Do you go ahead? (3 points)
• Do you drive on the wrong side of the road, near the pavement? (6 points)
• After overtaking a vehicle so that you’re in front of it, do you slam on the brakes? (6 points)
• Do you frequently stop your motorcycle just before the median begins, in the right-most lane, so that when the signal changes you can squeeze past the last car before the median? (3 points)
• Do you put on your helmet while driving? (3 points)
• Do you follow mirror, signal, manoeuvre? (-12 points)
• Do you brag to your friends about how you managed to squeeze between something and something else, and you could almost have died except you were so damn good a driver that it didn’t happen? (12 points)

Now if you scored more than 0, you’re an idiot. The degree of your stupidity is your score divided by 6. If you’re an Urban Boor, you are automatically an idiot of the greatest degree, because it is nearly assured that you have the highest score possible.

PS: Title applies only to vehicles owned by a person or family for the use of that person or family.

Posted in Madras | 11 Comments »

Recollection of Harmony

November 20th, 2008 Roshan

There was a time when Metallica was cool. Everyone and their dad flashed the heavy metal salute while listening to _the_ band of the time. Then things changed, Metallica went after Napster, they went after their fans, some people who celebrated them. Things changed quickly, Metallica is now Public Enemy No. 1. But sometimes I look through my cassette tapes, go over Motorhead, Styx, Soul Asylum, Uriah Heep, and wait with anticipation as the tape hiss segues into Metallica. I know how it’s going to start, years of listening to these cassettes has my mind primed for the next note that comes through.

Listening to those tapes brings with it all the memories of a time when we were all younger: you can almost feel all the teenage angst, all the anger and pain, the childishness and the stupidity. Often you can remember happy times, and the people you knew, and who knew you. Nostalgia comes in waves, not in drops. I’m sure everyone strongly associates music with memories.

Take this rendition of Nothing Else Matters. Tell me it doesn’t remind you of anything.

PS: An RSS aggregator is a nice thing to have. Also, I can’t stop listening to the last thirty seconds of Around the World

Posted in Me | 3 Comments »

Book Meme

November 12th, 2008 Roshan

He had just finished, and had put the packet in his pocket, when in the court below resounded the cry:… - Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky.
I’ve been reading this book for a while now, and it is depressing. I don’t think I’m going to finish it. How did it all start? Well, one day I told myself, “I shall no longer be ignorant of English literature, I shall read The Classics”. Well here I am, with a Classic, and it’s goddamn depressing.

Saw this on the blog of Jono Bacon of Jokosher fame. Because it’s so cool, I’m going to share:

• Grab the nearest book.
• Open it to page 56.
• Find the fifth sentence.
• Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
• Pick the closest book, not your favourite. C. & P. was nearly edged out by my cousin’s Engineering Mathematics. Close one.

As revenge for previous acts, and just because I want to hate on some people, I demand that everyone do this.

Posted in internet | 3 Comments »

Veni, vidi, reveni

November 9th, 2008 Roshan

I am back, bad Latin translations and all, to the city where I was born. Bombay is one hell of a city, count me impressed. Madras is an okay place, an overgrown town perhaps, but there’s nothing like having everything just the way you want: from cabs that you can register by email to drinks with your dinner just about anywhere. In Bombay, things get done…except if you’re Vodafone. I’ve had them for a month and a half now and I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to a human customer care rep. and they don’t honour their own DND lists.

There’s nothing like taking a train into the south end of the city and being faced by tranquility along long sidewalks, overhung by trees. I got my tickets to concerts sent to me by SMS, my wine delivered to my door, my local train pass in 40 seconds. I’ve walked by crazed BJP activists, stared in apprehension at TV sets on my bus fizzing with police warnings while the MNS’s riots were stopped short by the police, and anxiously stood silent as a truck loaded with Hindutva nutcases waving flags careens around the corner in front of me. Excitement and wonder are cheap. I’ve lost myself on paved streets, wandered into cricket matches and bazaars alike, and stood on the edge of a mosque’s sea-wall staring into the sea. It was bright where I was, the people had changed.

Things happen in Bombay. You open the papers to find someone or the other shot, to find someone caught for shooting someone else, or the best of all, to find that the cop who shot all those people was a mob hitman, extortionist, and land-grabber. Posters called for alertness, plainclothesmen played terrorists to catch sleeping guards. Getting to work is an adventure, the lines ferry as many people as there are in all of Chennai. Everything is faster, bigger, more complex. Everything was nicer.

I was happy.

Posted in Me | 6 Comments »

Apric Light

October 11th, 2008 Roshan

You’re sitting at the table, mooching off the neighbour’s Wi-Fi. There’s a glass of Riesling (2007) in your hand. It’s your last glass, but hey, you’ve eaten well, no reason to skimp on the drink. The only thing that bothers you is that you could only afford a bottle of Madera to replace it. A small matter, and your mind drifts to other things, to the evening, for instance.

You’re looking out the large glass windows in the flat, Schubert’s Piano Quintet in A major playing at the back of your mind. Everything is more dramatic with Schubert’s P.Q.; and looking out of windows at flocks of doves flying in concert makes it seem to you like you’re witness to a moment of great import. It doesn’t last. On an impulse you decide to go for a walk, and perhaps photograph everything on the way. Donning your trusty ancient AJAX jersey, you set out. At first all is familiar; it appears you’re in comfortable territory, despite the Shiv Sena board in the corner.

But soon things change, you reach a crossroads and something makes you pick the road less travelled by. The further on you walk, the more unfamiliar things get. You’re an alien here: you barely speak the language, your wallet is fatter than it should be, and you’re the wrong religion. But it seems peaceful, all seems well. Mumbai’s propensity for roads that lead off into nowhere, and buildings that look like they’ve been here a hundred years is only unmatched by Calcutta. But you’re not in Calcutta now. A little way on, you come to a crossroads. Laziness demands that you choose not to cross the road, and you obey, but only for so long.

A few seconds later, you suddenly feel a tug inside you: something’s calling out to you. Barely formed thoughts echo in your mind. It’s not entirely by choice that you turn and choose to cross the road, laziness forgotten. As you walk further on, the words in your head seem to take shape, and pictures flash across your sight, familiar pictures but you can’t quite tell what. You walk past a bunch of boys trying to get at a kite that’s entangled with an overhead cable. The stick they’re using is 2 metres short; the sight nearly makes you laugh and you think of waiting and taking a shot. But that now familiar tug draws you onward, forcing you to ignore the kids. They have a different idea though, and want to be photographed. You oblige. But you can’t wait.

A voice speaks to you, right inside you, so it isn’t heard but felt. It asks you to look for an old man carrying grain past a stagnant canal, it warns you of a hole in your path. It fades away softly as you walk on. A strange script covers a building that you pass by, a sign perhaps. There are more jewellers here than there should be, every other shop sells gold. You pull out your camera, but suddenly everything goes dark, there are no lights, it’s hard to see. Holding your wallet tight you stalk past suspicious looking men, ignoring vendors’ calling out to “Bhai-saab!”. Suddenly the lights come back on, but you don’t know this place at all, you don’t even remember how you got here. You can barely see the road for the people on it. Panic fills your throat.

Images pulse through your head - a Riven-like wooden building, with a staircase in front; a stalled van, half-converted into a shop by a snake-oil salesman; paved streets that lead to dust. The impulse to run is stronger than ever now, something is reaching across time to pull you onward, dragging you when you won’t budge. Your eyes are closed, but behind them memories whiz past: a time when you were a child, feeding the crows half your lunch; another time when you ate puffed brown rice at a cousin’s home; rain falling down all around you as you stood looking at a duck on a lake; a road slick with water, an uphill trudge to a friend’s house where you see the biggest aquarium you’ve seen till then; palm trees, huge lagoons, tales of Christian priests; fried beef, mutton curry and fish for lunch. All of this overwhelms you, you open your eyes and read the signboard in front of you: “SUNNY“. You stand on the doorstep for a long time, your mind a haze, a single question unanswered, “Am I worthy?”

Posted in Bombay | 8 Comments »

Ubuntu on my Dell XPS M1330 - Booted with the MediaDirect button

October 9th, 2008 Roshan

So when my motherboard was replaced, MediaDirect stopped starting up, so there was no Media to be had from the button, Direct or otherwise and the button itself booted Vista and then started the MediaDirect application. Thinking I had a brilliant idea, I set out to see if I could boot Ubuntu using the MediaDirect button and Vista using the Power button, only to find that hundreds of other people have done that before to.

However none of those guides worked because I simply couldn’t manage to install GRUB to the extended partition due to many many errors. Finally, I deleted MediaDirect, installed Ubuntu in a couple of logical partitions and went back to using Windows. Then today, I decided to finish the job, and with LiveCD in hand proceeded to fight the demons of distro installation under esoteric conditions. GRUB kept failing trying to find stage1 and stage2 files, and no matter how many tricks I tried, none of them worked. Until I discovered this lovely parameter to grub-install.

So with GRUB already installed on the logical partition (as part of the Ubuntu installation process), I just had to point grub-install to the right place to get all the files from:
sudo grub-install --root-directory=/media/disk-1/ /dev/sda4
and boom! I had a bootloader on the extended partition.

The best part is that I’d already installed the Dell bootloader (the one that handles the difference between MediaDirect and Power) configured to look at the third and fourth partitions and so I shut down and hit the MediaDirect button and then much happiness ensued. At least until I saw how fonts looked in Firefox :)

The command to run from the Dell MediaDirect disc is:
rmbr.exe dell 3 4
Remember to start cmd.exe with Administrator permissions (right click, Run as Administrator). The only problem is that ‘Restart’ always means ‘Restart into Windows’.

To get proper instructions on how to do this instead of this garbled mess, here are the links I found most useful:
Using the Media Direct button to boot Ubuntu
Another thread for that
The thread where I found out about --root-directory

Posted in Gadgets | 13 Comments »

Answer these questions

October 7th, 2008 Roshan

Chitra is the reason for this. Blame her. Also, yes, I am aware that non-committal answers are completely useless.

1. If your lover betrayed you, what will your reaction be?
Karma’s a bitch, but in the meantime, there’s my impotent rage to deal with.

2. If you can have a dream come true, what would it be?
Realistically, to have a nice small family, a job that pays enough and gives me enough time for me to take two weeks off at least each year to visit a foreign country. Not so realistically, I want to be Bov Ine - the fire-breathing god of doom who rides a cow whose hooves strike lightning and whose horns are a portal to Discworld.

3. Whose butt would you like to kick?
Guns, I believe in peace.

4. What would you do with a billion dollars?
Buy a stake in AIG (ha ha).

5. Will you fall in love with your best friend?
I don’t swing that way.

6. Which is more blessed: loving someone or being loved by someone?
Can’t I have both? I don’t know otherwise. Think hard, and you probably won’t either.

7. How long do you intend to wait for someone you love?
If they love me…forever. If not, not at all.

8. If the person you secretly like is attached, what will you do?
Depends on what they’re attached to. I generally stay clear of people attached to cows, for instance.

9. If you could root for one social cause, what would it be?
Universal education. This is very important. Secondly, the mandatory death sentence for harassment.

10. What takes you down the fastest?
Ha ha! Like I’d tell you my only weakness!

11. Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?
Exactly? In bed.

12. What’s your fear?
Heights.

13. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?
A very cunning character.

14. Would you rather be single and rich or married and poor?
Once I would have chosen the latter, but it makes little sense, so I’d choose the former.

15. What’s the first thing you do wen you wake up?
Hit the snooze button. Yes yes, I know everyone was thinking the same thing, and then we all go back to sleep. And you won’t believe it, it was just five minutes but when we woke up it was 3 hours.

16. If you fall in love with two people simultaneously who will you pick?
Henry Hill (the guy from Goodfellas) said it best, “If you can’t love two people at once, there’s something wrong with you”. No, not really.

17. Would you give all in a relationship?
I try. I would love to.

18. Would you forgive and forget someone no matter how horrible a thing he has done?
No, I’m the exact other end of the spectrum. I nurse grudges on tiny matters. I still don’t forgive Bikram for spilling lime juice on my sandals two and a half years ago.

19. Do you prefer being single or in a relationship?
The latter, but it does give you a little freedom to not be.

20. List of 6 people to tag:
Marc - Because he won’t do anything about it.
Isha - Because she’ll laugh at me and call me … a very bad name.
Volunteers please - I don’t get that many comments, you see.

When I was a kid I decided to write a chain letter, it didn’t get very long. But I sent it anyway, and I cheated, I used carbon paper. So take that, suckers. I was a young spammer. Sadly, now that’s all coming back to me.

Posted in Me | 18 Comments »

The day the Earth didn’t stand still for me

September 18th, 2008 Roshan

It all started when I decided to go to Victoria Terminus, now Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus, to catch my train to Madras. I have a tendency to be paranoid about trains and missing them so I left an hour before the departure time. Granted this would only give me fifteen minutes at the station but hey, I’m a seasoned passenger. I’ve travelled on more trains than most fifth graders can count. I don’t need more than that. Well, turns out I did. And that explains just what I’m doing here at the airport, trying to get the so-called wifi to work.

The damn flight’s been delayed too. Have you ever wondered about that? Why are the things you’d rather get done fast usually the one’s delayed? I could have settled for ten minutes more in the morning. Coming back to that, this thing applies there too. A very helpful suburban local came fifteen minutes late and reluctantly bore me to the station. Too late, apparently. I listened, calmly incredulous, as the lady explained to me “1041? Wo gaya”. Not a trace of emotion on her face, not a flicker of embarrassment for having flagged off a train while its most important passenger was still biting his nails on a crippled local that was happily trundling its way through Dockyard Road.

One day, I shall find the people who did this to me. I will travel from village to town to city, the smell of guilt strong in my nostrils. I shall wander across deserts and hills…and rivers, or what passes for those here, and I will reach a city of great splendour. With the memory of this railway betrayal fresh in my mind I will roam the streets, my eyes scouring the signs for the place I want. And I’ll know it when I see it, and I’ll barge in, smashing the door down, all rage and fury. And then, just as I draw myself up, just as I scream out, “I am become revenge, destroyer of rails.” in impassioned anger I’ll realise that I’m looking at a mirror.

The wifi doesn’t work either.

Posted in Bombay | 9 Comments »

The Gardener: A Dream

September 4th, 2008 Roshan

I had the wildest dream last night. It had a whole lot of characters, but sadly because I was doing other stuff till now, I’ve forgotten most of it. The parts I remember was this time when two kids were stuck in the rain and they decided to shelter in a garage of this big house. So while they’re in this garage, this creepy old woman opens a door from inside the house to the garage and she looks at them and says, “Come to stay here, that’s really nice.” and she closes the door. Then the younger kid opens another door wondering what’s behind it, and this woman opens her door again saying, “Oh yes, you’ll find that interesting.” and then the door slams shut behind the kid. When he opens the door again, he’s somewhere completely different, and this keeps happening with him opening doors and finding himself looking into some different place altogether. The final bit is when he opens the door and a big dog-lion thing jumps out, but he manages to dodge it once. After that, it switched to a completely different thing.

I was in the same house, and this really fat friend of mine (completely fictional) was right there next to me. And just as we started to talk, I noticed a really old withered man coming down from the hill. He had a scythe in his hand, and I recognized him as the gardener. To play with my friend, I said, “Oh shit!” and started running away from the house and along a path towards a marsh. The terrain was rolling, so if you went over the crest of the path you wouldn’t be able to see along the back again. All the while when I was running I kept yelling, “It’s the GAAAAAARRRRRDENNNNNNERRR!” and after a while this friend of mine was also running alongside me yelling that. It was like some sort of Indian warcry except that it wasn’t because I was starting to believe in this whole thing myself and getting pretty scared. The marsh is like a field, at this point of my dream and set in a rough square with a path down the center and other such grid-like stuff. The path we were running along met the field at the point where the road down the center was, but we decided to take a right and then a left to run parallel to that. At this point we met another withered old man who was driving a caravan train with nothing inside the caravans. I managed to run fast enough to catch up with the last caravan and hop on. The driver was off the train now and just yelling at whatever was pulling the caravans (couldn’t see it) and cracking his whip, and he laughed maniacally as he made the caravan turn down that center road and back up the path to the mansion. Then suddenly, the fat friend (and I mean really fat, he was huge!) came around the bend and thundered down on the caravans at an immense speed. While the old man cackled, my friend managed to lunge for the last caravan and get on. I nearly fell down trying to get out of his way as he boarded, the old man softened at this and told me to watch out. He then yelled, “The GAAAAAARRRDENNNERRR!” and I saw the gardener coming down the path headed straight for the first caravan moving at him.

I now remember the first dream, I wanted to explore this desert called the Red Desert. The sand there was like it was on the surface of Mars or something, completely red. And it wasn’t sand as much as it was loose rocks mixed with some sand. What I was looking for was this thing called the Black Hole which is in a lake somewhere in this desert. There were two lakes, one with the Black Hole and one without. By the time I found the first lake, I was really thirsty, but the liquid in the lake didn’t look like water at all. It was black or maybe a very dark shade of green. So I soldiered on towards the Black Hole Lake which I could see not too far away. When I got there I saw why it was called that, there was this giant whirlpool in the center of the lake and while the edges were a dark (almost black) shade of blue the center was absolutely black and the water was swirling around this whole all the time, but there was no more coming from anywhere, so it mustn’t have been going into the whirlpool as much as just spinning. There was no wind, just the sun and the red sand.

Just when I thought I was going to really start needing something to drink or I’d die, I saw a bunch of horsemen come up over the top of a ridge and in front of them, running as fast, was my younger brother. When I looked where he was running I saw that this whole Black Hole Lake thing had been made a tourist attraction, and people were coming here just to look at this place on organized tours. It was like a big circus town, and there was food and drink and even an Indian Bank ATM. I tried to get money from the ATM but it kept getting jammed with my card and not doing anything so I just settled for what I had. Then my brother came along with a camel and asked me to get on. I got on, and we went around the circus tent town and my brother and the camel looked under the roof of one of those tents to watch the tricks inside but I couldn’t see because I was sitting at the back, I remember I got quite angry at that. Then that faded out and the rest began.

Posted in Me | 6 Comments »

A new city, a new home

August 22nd, 2008 Roshan

In the interest of those awaiting the next episode in Roshan’s life, I present: Life in Bombay.

I moved to Bombay in the first week of August after fate noticed my true desire and delayed my flight a few days, at first, and then a few weeks from the original date of mid-July. Everything came intact, so I’m now a big fan of Indigo, though I recognise it’s a sad state of affairs when that’s commendable. As for the city itself, I love it. While I’d still rather be in Madras today, I love Mumbai, it’s a goddamned metropolis. Everything here moves! There’s action! Things are getting done! Or so it seems, unless everyone enjoys riding the trains up and down all day. Unlike sleepy Chennai, where even on Mount Road, life goes along at a gentle 20km/h (if you’re lucky), in Bombay people are flying from home to work to home to bar to outside home having forgotten their keys at an incredible 100km/h. The trains are fast, the people are in a hurry, and it rains all the bloody time.

It’s been three weeks and I still haven’t seen the city fully yet. As a matter of fact, I’ve seen very little. One thing I’ve noticed about Bombay is that class discrimination is very clear here. If you’re poor you live on one side of the tracks, if you aren’t you live on the other side. Allow me to demonstrate with a photograph:

With that in mind, I am deeply grateful that I’m on this side of the rails. And the trains themselves, beautiful things, I’m told some routes average 100km/h. Now that’s transport my friends, in style. No traffic to worry about, no two-wheelers and autos switching into your lane without warning, just a nice, uncomfortable, 7-per-square-metre standing all the way ride. Sometimes I even get a seat.

I’d tell you more, but I’m bored of typing. So I’ll give you another two photographs, the views out the living room window from the 20th floor apartment where I live:

Posted in Bombay | 10 Comments »