When wolves become shepherds…

A shepherd was out with his sheep one day, when a wolf came along and attacked one of them. The man chased after the wolf and took his sheep back. The wolf then turned, and spoke to the shepherd:
”If today you are protecting the sheep, but who will protect the sheep on the Day of Savagery, when there will be no shepherd to protect the sheep, except me.
The day, when wolves become shepherds…”




And today, when US president Barack Hussain Obama was awarded the Nobel Prize in Peace “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”…
…my initial reaction was:
”Say WHAT??”

Now don’t get me wrong…its not like I don’t like Obama (his monkey-faced predecessor yes, but not him, really) but I’d like to know two things:
1) What exactly did Obama do to deserve a “peace” award and
2) was there really no one else in the world who made a bigger contribution to peace this year???

Yes, I really would appreciate it if any of those guys from the Nobel Committee cared to explain exactly WHY the hell would they want to give a “peace” award for someone who hasn’t really done anything so far.
I mean okay, so he’s “strengthening diplomacy” but is that what a peace prize is for? Almost seems like an insult to what Mother Teresa did.

Which brings us to my next question:
This whole “strengthening diplomacy” thing – is that honestly the best anyone has done for peace this year; out of 6 billion people? Seriously?
Wow, it that’s really true, the future of humanity doesn’t look very promising.


But then maybe I’m just over-reacting. I guess at some level this is good news; because now the Nobel Prize – the Epitome of all that is Great and High – all of a sudden seems within reach of almost anyone.
I mean come on, if Obama can bag a peace prize after calling for renewed attacks on a country America invaded… its almost surprising why anyone else can’t have one.

Hmm, I wonder if Britney Spears would like a Nobel Prize in Chemistry next year…
Think I’ll start a campaign or something.
Who’s with me?

Intelligence India

Despite everything we say about our country being backwardly progressive, apparently a lot of people in the western world think that India in general – and Indians especially – are quite bright sparks.

Here’s quite a few amusing incidents I’ve experienced/found to this effect:

Last June, I happened to sit next to an old German guy on the plane back to Frankfurt from Dubai and we got talking.
He first asked me if I was Arab (I don’t know why, a lot of people have asked me that; starting to wonder if I don’t look Indian enough) and when I said I wasn’t; and that I was from India, he only had one thing on the top of his mind:
”Ah India, you must be a computer programmer then?”

* * *

I was out at dinner with some people from work last month to bid farewell to some colleagues from Argentina. Of course, as the lot involved several colorful nationalities (we had Indian, German, Argentinean, and Spanish speaking people with us that night) the conversation undoubtedly turned towards languages and culture.
That’s when one guy asked me if Indians were supposedly good with programming because;
”Your native languages follow a grammatical structure similar to a programming syntax”

After I nearly rolled over with laughter, I began to wonder if it really could be my bad Tamil grammar that’s causing all the bugs in my programs.

* * *

The character from the comic-strip Dilbert once remarked on the intellectual ability of Indians and their suitability for outsourcing projects. As he presents his report, the first option on his list was,
“highly educated Indians who speak perfect English”

…who were of course finally not chosen because they were also quite “pricey”. :D

* * *

In the recent (2009) animated movie Monsters vs. Aliens, in the scene where the top of the US armed forces meet and realize how bad the situation really is, the US President shouts at an underling,
“We need our top scientific minds on this. Get me India on the phone!”

* * *

Apparently there’s a lot more to India then people imagine.
And if the above is any indication to go by, then I’m only too happy to be part of it.
:)

Base Bloggers

Without saying their names I’d like to mention that as of this morning, five people who I’ve known, personally or otherwise, decided to quit off the blogosphere and delete their blogs.

And I’m not sure if any of those people might be reading this post, but just in case you are, I’ve got just one thing to say to you guys:

You’ve let us down.

“Us” is every single person who ever visited your blog, read your posts and was considerate enough to leave a comment on it.
We did all that because we thought it mattered. We thought it was fascinating to glimpse into your lives and look at that special place where all things suddenly become equal – where you write all those interesting happenings in your life, your poems and creative proses, your dreams and those mad little thoughts, everything that you wanted to share with the world.

Until you decided to shut that door upon us forever.
And I say again: I am disappointed.

To all those ex-bloggers who’ve decided to quit and move on; I wish you all the best for your future pursuits, and I do hope that your life takes on a deeper meaning than it has now.

And on behalf of the community, I’d just like to say that while we will not grieve for you, we will surely miss you!

Peace.

"This only is our English!"

Let’s face it…we as Indians, live all over the world, with vast majorities in the United States, UK, the Middle East and Australia, and in smaller minorities in the rest of Europe and Asia.
We belong to multiple religions and share diverse cultures. We indulge in diverse cuisines and speak different languages; but one thing unites us all, and that is, how we speak our beloved English language.

A collection of the most common sentences we hear from our comrades living all over the world…and the sheer confusion it causes.


“Back home, I had a two-wheeler”
(Exactly what kind of wheelie is that?)


“I think it is over costly”
(Firstly, what’s expensive isn’t ‘costly’…and two, what’s over it?)


“Is it veg or non-veg?”
(I’ve never failed to have fun with this typical yes-I-am-from-India dialog)


“It was on that street, na?”
(Na…I don’t think so)


“Who and all went there, I don’t know”
(The “and all” adds a desi touch to any statement don’t you think?)


“So only you told him, but he will not listen, isn’t it?”
(If you understood this, congratulations!)


“No, not vacation; I’m going to my native.”
(Another classic that leaves heads spinning)


“I used to go to office by auto, sometimes share-auto”
(To be honest, I’m not sure if anyone outside India will ever understand this one)


“I’m sure he can able to do this one”
(No comments on this, please)


“Tastes very good; especially with brinjal fry”
(I don’t know why, but most Asian vegetables aren’t known in the western world. And our “brinjal” has at least two other names.)


“Sorry, but she is out of station”
(She's out of where?)


“So, where are you put up?”
(Bad enough that I have to put up with this statement, he means to ask where you live)


“Binesh sir is not here – can you call later?”
(Okay, so he’s respected, but surely this guy Binesh is not knighted?)


"Right now I'm taking food"
(...and where are you taking it?)


"What is your good name?"
(Er...you mean like I also have a bad one?)


"Since extra work came up, my evening plans went for a toss"
(Cricket-inspired jargon. Another reason I hate that game)

…and there’s probably a ton more - I just can't think of any more for the fear my head might explode. And to all you non-Indians reading this and smirking at us…yes, English is our language too.

And we will speak it like this only.
:-)

“I was just about to mail you right now…”

…is such a pathetic excuse we (or at least, I) get from co-workers, subordinates and even the management sometimes that we completely ignore the real significance of this remarkable coincidence.
Mostly I just think, “Yeah right, so what else is new” before moving on to the actual topic of the call or email which is usually just as mundane as everything else at work.

This evening however was when I really found out the reality of this phrase in a rather delightful way. While I was having lunch this afternoon I thought I’d mail an old friend of mine who I hadn’t heard from in quite some time.

Now the trouble is, getting back in contact with people you’ve been out of touch with for a while, kinda feels awkward at times because you don’t really know what to say or how much to write.

It was with these confused thoughts that I logged into my Gmail this evening – and found to my delightful surprise, that I had an email from her just an hour ago, making it the first of all items in my inbox.

It wasn’t too long or complicated; just a “hi-its-been-a-long-time-so-just-getting-back-in-touch” mail that is guaranteed to put a smile on anyone’s face; especially when you were just about to mail them at that time.

I quickly read through it, and then started off my reply with,
“Hi, I was just about to mail you right now…”

And then I paused.

There's really no way anyone can understand what that statement actually means, is there?

Indian girls are LOUD!

Er…no offense to any of the ladies but I’m sorry, this is something that gets me annoyed every single time I get on the bus for groceries on my way home from work.

I guess its fair game to state that we as Indians are known for our ‘social’ nature; we chat with perfect strangers on trains and busses, play games and sing songs during fun college trips, even play games that involve singing songs and the like; but I think its only right that living in a foreign land means showing a bit of respect for the local culture.

In this case; the fact that the only things Germans are fond of on public transport are reading or staring out at the window with the earphones plugged in.

Anyway, every time I take the bus – the 72 towards Russelsheim – I almost feel like I’m back in India the moment I step in.
This bus is half full of girls (alright, women!) chatting away non-stop in Hindi, usually with a Bollywood song playing in the background from someone’s I-wanna-flaunt-it mobile phone. More often than not, there’s one member of the party stuck in the middle of the bus, but not that this stops these girls (women, okay!) from shouting out to them halfway across the bus, as if the rest of us were stone deaf or something.

And I’m no expert, but I'm guessing people think they can be loud just because apparently no one else understand a word of Hindi.
Well I’ve got news for them:
People know exactly what they mean because, though I didn’t wanna say it this way, the Hindi (or Tamil) we speak, is so far out from the original and has so many English words that anyone can get a fairly good idea of what’s going on.

I mean come on, when you point to someone and say,
“Dhek, uski eye color blue hai”,
…it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure what you’re talking about!

The height of this fiasco is reached when the bus gets to the stop of their hotel and some of them realize they’re already there only when the first half of the party is already outside, and then jumps back in to shout out to the rest to get off. Seriously, I’ve seen circus clowns less hilarious than this!

I think that just because we’re a social lot doesn’t give us the right to abuse upon those of others – and create a thoroughly negative impact on our culture in the process.

I’d also like to think of this as social service, so in case you know someone who’s loud, I please suggest that you print this out, and leave it on their desk or someplace they’d see it.

Particularly  if they happen to work in the Avionics Training Center in Kelsterbach and take the RMV 72 to Mercure Wings Hotel, Raunheim at 5:42PM everyday.

I’d really appreciate if they could read this.J

Lonely

I recently came to realize that we have another tenant living at our place – a lonely old man who lives in a one-room apartment down in the basement.

Now, being one of only 3people who live here (this is not an apartment, its just one huge house where the owners stay in one portion and sub-let the other two to us and another couple) I was genuinely astounded to find that out – because the guy must at least a good seventy five and lives alone with a bicycle.

Yes, with a bicycle.
And one of the reasons I’ve never seen him before is because he doesn’t get out much and no one comes to see him.

It makes me re-think on all the times I’ve felt alone like when my roomie goes on vacation and stuff and realize, “God, its good to have people – friends and family – who love and care about you!”.

I guess it’s another one of those small things we all take for granted.
There is a lot in life we should be thankful for.

Overload!

I originally intended this to be sort of a sequel to my last post on Online living because I later realized there was so much I didn’t do it much justice – and as some people pointed out; maybe there is more to life than the internet.

But brings us to another point: overload of the stuff we love and hold on to everyday.

Apart from my work Email and office phone (which keep me busy nearly the entire day five days a week) I also have 3 other personal Email accounts which demand checking a few times a day. And then there is orkut – the single biggest service I use on the internet next only to google search.
To complicate things, I recently discovered a whole lot of my high-school buddies on facebook and joined in. And then there is Linked-In to keep in touch with old colleagues from work who neither fit in orkut or facebook.

And this does not even take into account the free sign-up offers I turn down everyday from places named Hi5, friendster, WAYN, Shelfari, RupeeMail, Yaari… and this list gets long.

 Add to this is the sweet chaos of blogging and checking out the regular blogs I read, joining in the discussion forum I comment on regularly (which I will not mention here) and a crazy service called My Blog Log – which I have no idea why the devil I signed up for.

Picasa and Flickr where I stash my pix online.

And then there is twitter; which I don’t use all that much either and just signed up because it felt like a good idea at the time (and because the guys from CommonCraft did a great marketing job with Twitter in Plain English!)

 It suddenly dawned on me that I have way too many things to keep track of online. Maybe it is time to switch all things off for a while and stay disconnected from all things electronic.

 

And when that day comes; I’ll do another post on it ;-)

Online Living

A friend of mine recently lamented on how she nearly quit blogging because she thought she “ran out of stuff to say to the world” and I disagree.

I, for one, feel lost without access to the online stuff I love and cherish; which for the most part include Email, chat, blogging, socializing on orkut (and Facebook too, now that I’ve discovered it!), participating on discussion forums, scribbling nonsense on twitter and writing comments on YouTube videos – all of which are stuff you want to say to the people who care to listen.

And in doing so, I guess we sometimes tend to forget how much of our lives is really out there in the unknown, at the whim of anyone who chooses to use it.

Friendly comments and tags aside, I’ve had my share of abuse too. I’ve had spammers trash my blog, received rude comments on everything from blog comments to news articles and video reviews; I even had unknown people question my faith.
And in having all this; we sometimes tend to get emotional over the content we sometimes need to deal with. I once blew my top over a nut who argued over the existence of God and it took me a couple of cups of tea to calm down.

YouTube’s “report abuse” section has some helpful advice though. They say you need to realize there’s life beyond the internet, and move on. And if that doesn’t help, to try staying away from the computer for a while.

In short, realize that your life online is pretty much the same as in real life – from the friends to foes, there’s plenty of people; thoughts and opinions. And yours doesn’t always go with everyone. But that doesn’t mean you have to be mum about it.
Because there really is so much to say.

Trust me.

New Delhi and the bombs

Shortly after 6:30pm IST, a series of 5 bombs rocked the Indian capital of New Delhi, killing around 2 dozen people and wounding around a hundred others.

On behalf of everyone here, we extend our deepest sympathies and condolences to the families who have lost their loved ones…for no fault of theirs. And at the same time, curse the wrecked freaks who caused this; killing innocent people in their mindless wake.

And it makes me angry thinking about it. This is not the first time this has happened, and probably is not the last. So in between when it happened for the first time and now; what has changed and what hasn’t?

As ever, the President, Prime Minister, Other Ministers, and all the guys up in Parliament, issued their standard statement expressing their “deepest concerns” and “appeal for calm and peace”.

On the face of it, it sounds like a good idea. Keep calm. And let the authorities do their job.

But as history bears witness, this does not really happen. What does happen is a series of routine tasks:

1)       The police ‘investigates’ and makes random arrests around the city of ‘suspects’…as if terrorists just hang around waiting for the police to grab them.

2)       Security gets ‘beefed up’ (whatever the hell that means) around airports, train stations and other ‘strategic locations’…as if terrorists are stupid enough to attack the most obvious places just hours after a major attack.

3)       Barricades are put up, and a major part of the public that had nothing to do with this is agonized by not being able to visit their loved ones in hospital or move away from hot spots.

4)       News channels, magazines and news sites go into overdrive on how to deal with the menace.

5)       The government reiterates its commitment to fighting violent attacks and acts of terror.

6)       The opposition party organizes rallies on how the current administration is doing such a sloppy job.

7)       Two weeks later, everyone forgets the whole thing. And life goes on as usual.

As usual of course, except for those who lost their loved ones in the attack. And then those ‘suspects’ who were rounded up just to make the police look good, and languish in dungeons with no charges laid against them.

Conveniently forget; is sadly what our country seems to do best.

The CEO’s Ticket

If Corporate Politics and Mismanagement were an Olympic sport, I guess this incident would probably take the Gold this year.

Some CEO’s stupid e-ticket inadvertently got voided when it was not supposed to and needed to be re-issued manually. Now, things like this happen all the time due to system glitches (this is the part where the guy at the check-in counter gives you a blank look and tells you have to wait for a while because of some ‘computer error’), but anyway, stuff like this happen all the time in a normal working day, to normal folks worldwide.

Unfortunately for us, this time, it had to be a CEO.
As usual, the half the management jumped us and drove us crazy to resolve the issue, but then I wonder:

Do CEOs stand in line at those obnoxious check-in queues and get told, “Sorry mac, but your ticket’s no good” like the rest of us?
What do they do then; call up the office and ask to waitlisted on the next available plane…and then sit at a waiting lounge for their name to be called?
Do they then call up their other CEO buddies and play online Monopoly or something?

Its all good for the imagination, but I’m willing to bet none of the above happened and Mr. CEO probably didn’t even have an idea that something was wrong with his ticket. If anything, he was probably just informed of a ‘small mishap on the system’.

Which means my entire week-long data analysis of what exactly happened to his ticket and the technical reasons for the untimely void, is worth nothing.

The max that can happen is that it ends up as a report on his desk, waiting to be tossed in the trash along with yesterday’s newspaper when Mr. CEO comes back from his trip!

TouchType

This may not be a topic that’s discussed all that often but, even though almost everyone I know spends a good part of their day looking at a computer; not many people I know can touch-type.

Doing a random you-don’t-know-I’m-doing-this-survey at work the other day, I found most of my colleagues – all of them skilled programmers – hopelessly poking at the keyboard with their forefingers while concentrating on what they are writing. Some of the more experienced people used up to two fingers per hand but that was it.
In fact, the only people I really did see touch-type (at a remarkable speed too, I must add) were the secretaries.

I don’t know why this really bothers me enough to do a post on it, but it kind of reflects on the skill-set we take pride in not having. I mean, even though we no longer concerned about handwriting (I mean, the only times I seem to hold a pen anymore are only to sign something), in a world where the only difference between someone crossing their “f”s and dotting their “i”s depends on the font used, the least we can do is take a little more concern in how we run our fingers on the one surface that’s become the standard means of getting the message across…from Email to fax, printed letters, IMs, social networking and of course, blogging!

“Smokers are brainless idiots!”

I’m sorry if you’re smoker and just read this, but I’m not taking it back. This is exactly how I feel about every single person who lights up a cigarette during the course of his day.
Brainless idiots.
So there!

Now, I don’t want to go into all the already-well-published details on the why’s and how’s of smoking being bad and all that – I guess anyone with the intelligence of a humming bird knows that smoking kills. But that’s not my problem.

My problem is, people’s attitude towards smoking and smokers.
Despite it being the most universal of ‘undesirable’ habits (of course in my book, alcoholism, drug abuse and indiscriminate sexual behavior also top the lists but I guess different cultures have different levels of tolerances towards these), I count around 65% of young people here in Hessen with a cigarette in hand and not a care in the world.

And, no one’s saying much either. Last October, Germany passed a law making it a crime to smoke in public buildings – such as restaurants, hotel lobbies and offices. But while anti-smoking advocates were high-fiving each other, the lobbyists made sure that what made the final bill was the word “public buildings” and not “public” – which meant that you could smoke anywhere as long as you weren’t inside anyplace.

And that makes me mad because what this shows is tolerance towards this despicable habit. I don’t know about most other people but I have zero-tolerance towards anyone who smokes.
I yank cigarettes out of my friends’ hands and crush them underfoot.
I make rude remarks at smokers at restaurants.
When in a group, I refuse to pay for anyone’s cigarettes.

And I guess everyone needs to do their part.
Maybe by hanging a board at the door that says, “Smokers and dogs not welcome here”, you’re not helping the guy quit; but at least by letting them know we don’t like it, and maybe, just maybe it might make a difference.

And for all the smokers reading this; I’ve just two words to say to you:
Go quit.

Because the rest of us think you’re brainless idiots!

Generation 'Why'

Note: This is going to be a controversial issue, so if you don’t like controversies, you’re probably not going to like this. Just a disclaimer before we start.

I don’t watch MTV all that often (heck I don’t even watch much TV anymore but that’s a different story) but being one of only 3 English channels my run-down satellite receiver picks – the rest being in Deutsch, Italiano, Francias and Espanol – I am forced to watch it, especially after a hard day’s work when you don’t feel like touching a computer again.

And apparently MTV wants us to believe that there are only three things worth living for:
Sex.
The opposite sex.
And more sex.

I don’t mean to advertise, but here’s a list of some popular programs you find…and an explanation of what they’re all about:

1. Next
Five guys competing for one girl (or the other way around) trying to win their hearts (or in any case money – a dollar for every minute you last on the date) before their prospective date ditches them and calls for “next”.

2. Date my Mom
Simply put, this is the most disgusting show I’ve ever seen. Guy wants girl, so he tries to ‘size her up’ by dating her mom to get a feel for what the girl would be like. If he’s lucky, he strikes two.

3. Parental Control
The guy’s folks don’t like his girlfriend (or the other way around with girl’s folks hating her boyfriend) so they decide to ‘find’ someone better and set them up on a date. Two dates later, the guy chooses if he wants to a) switch girls or b) keep his girl or c) ditch them all.

4. A shot at love
This show takes gross to a whole new sick height. Without going into the details, I’d just like to mention that in this show, the term “couple” does not necessarily mean people of the opposite gender…or just ‘two’ people. I leave the rest to your imagination.

5. Flavor of Love
Flavor of sensuality is more like it. This is another sick show where girls attend a ‘school’ where they ‘learn’ the tricks of the trade. You get it, right?


I’ll stop it now.
Reading back at the stuff I’ve written above; it almost sounds like porn. And I really wonder because all this isn’t stuff you get off dirty DVDs; they show this on prime time television all hours of the day (of course after eleven it gets worse…I don’t even wanna write about it)

Which brings me to an important question. Why is all of this happening?
The answer I got was simple: Why not?

Because when you remove the limitations set by God or by society or even by yourself; you don’t even have to answer that question anymore…you don’t have to ask, ‘why’? You just do it.
This is the future:
Generation ‘Why Not’

And it doesn’t look pretty.

The things you hear...

Overhead at my office recently:

"Oh, no I don't need to know any of that. You see, I'm a manager."

Of men and women

In today’s world of miniaturization and micro-everything, men are the real experts:
While women still lug around 5 pound hand bags containing “stuff they need”, men manage to fit everything they’ll ever need into a wallet some 30 times smaller.

Women on the other hand, are the masters of multitasking. Our guy still has trouble reading the newspaper while watching the ball game. The secretary at my office however, can reply to Email when on the phone, holding the person in person in front of her while handing me the forms and still managing to smile at the boss who just entered – all at the same time!

Manage-mental Issues

I don’t usually talk about my work life, but the past couple of days were a roller coaster ride that so rocked the management – something that went live the day before brought half the system down and we for the life of it couldn’t figure out what the heck was going wrong.

The entire corporation met to discuss this in endless meetings and I had the privilege of being in one such meeting with the top of the top management. The following are excerpts from that meeting.

(The statements in quotes were made by one of the morons managers. The italics are my thoughts at the time.)

“We need to fix this as soon as possible”
Tell me something I don’t know!

“I’m starting to lose my patience here with this problem”
You moron, I lost sleep last night, had to skip lunch and breaking my skull over this, you think I’m having fun here?

“The way I see it, there are two things that could have gone wrong”
The way you see it? Dude, when was the last time you looked at code. There’s a zillion things that can go wrong.

“You guys go ahead with your work, we’ll take care of the management issues”
So why the heck’d you bring me to this meeting? This isn’t exactly a technical discussion.

To another person on a call:
“Don’t worry; we have our people working on this as we speak”
No you’re not! I’m right here - listening to this stupid call.

“Do you require our assistance here any longer”
Any longer? Since when did you help us with to begin with? And what are you gonna do, compile a couple of programs for us? Maybe load a library?

“If we have to work over the weekend, then we will work over the weekend”
We? You mean “I” am going to work over the weekend. You’re probably gonna be sitting home watching TV asking me for a status every half hour.


Now, everybody has told me top managers are a waste of time, but after that call, I was convinced! How do these guys run the business without a clue of what’s going on!

Snoopy

In his own inimitable way, Charlie Brown once said to Snoopy:
“When a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it still make a sound”

Now unlike Snoopy, I’m guessing most of us never really give it much thought, but when I equated this with problems in our own lives, I found myself in a bit of a sticky situation:

Is it still a bug in my program when no one knows there’s a bug in my program?

Do I still owe Bob the €15 if he doesn’t remember I owe him money?

Do I still have to be in office at 9 o clock when no one will see there at 9 o clock?
.
.
The list goes on.

And unfortunately, I’m not too sure we answer ‘yes’ all the time. I don’t wanna go into deeper philosophical or moral consequences of the answers, but I’d just like to say that sometimes, there’s more to it.

After all, that tree did make a crash, whether you heard it or not!

A meter Matter

I don’t know how many people realize this (or even care to bother), but come 26th and it would be exactly 5 months to the day when autorickshaw meters were made “mandatory and non-negotiable” on the streets of Chennai.
5 months and several pot holes later, things are no different.

For those of you who don’t live in Chennai (or wondering what the hell an autorickshaw meter is), here’s some update:I guess it is safe to declare auto drivers as the most despicable, hated, and rude people in all of Chennai (since how much you pay depends on various factors like what language you speak, what you wear, and how lost you look) and anyway, someone decided to bring back order by revising tariff and making meters on autorickshaws mandatory. Of course, passing a law is only one side of the story. The other side, is implementing it.
Surprisingly, that went on pretty well too. Every auto rickshaw (can we just call them ‘autos’?; I’m getting tired of typing ‘autorickshaw’ all the time) fitted with a mechanical meter was given a revised fare-sheet and a deadline to go digital. Any auto already fitted with a digital meter had to get recalibrated and re-certified.

Then, they figured, things would 'auto'matically (pun intended!) fall into place with auto drivers charging you by the meter - not a rupee more, not a rupee less. They would benefit from the transparent system and we would go home happy knowing we didn't pay 30bucks more than the other guy for the same distance. Too good to be true?

Yeah, right. For the rest of us its a different story. Ask any auto driver to charge you by the meter, and you get laughed in your face. Or maybe insulted. In fact one guy went as far as to explain why they couldn’t use digi-meters: Apparently the IC goes haywire after a few potholes and ends up running crazy. Now that’s an answer worth an electronics engineer!

Anyway jokes apart, the law is still in place, meters still run but we still pay by their own rules.

And unless something concrete is done soon, the Meter is still a mile away!

Hel (met) of a Law!

This just in:
The latest crime spree doing the streets of Chennai is not flicking wallets or cell phones; it’s something much ridiculous – helmets. Yup you heard right, the latest fashion accessory sporting everyone’s head ever since the helmet law came in two days ago was reported to be the most frequently stolen item. And that’s just in two days!

For the uninitiated, Chennai’s just taken the plunge to make roads much er…safer by re-introducing the compulsory helmet-for-everyone law since June 1. That means, every single person – rider or passenger – on a bike will have to either wear one or risk getting caught red handed (not to mention bare-headed! :-0) .

Now on the face of it, this sounds like a pretty good idea. But when you get down to it, Chennai’s not exactly known for its one-person-per-bike phenomenon. That means either the bike owner buys a couple of spare helmets for the occasional backseat rider or everyone in town buys (and carries) one since you never know when you might need a lift and if the other guy has a helmet or not.

And oh yes, we’re forgetting something else. What about whole families that sometimes travel together? Yup, the wife, kids and sometimes the mother-in-law, all on the same bike (trust me, this really happens in Chennai) with helmets on them…kind of crams up the headroom.

Don’t get me wrong: Helmets are a great invention. Yes, helmets save lives; more than people think. A cousin of mine owes his life to a helmet that saved him in a bike accident a couple of years ago.
But with any invention, forcing a law onto people is not gonna make things safer. It has to come from within.