Sparkling Whines

Aukaat, I’m coming

Katte — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 05:36:06 +0000

I realized recently that the Hindi/Urdu word “Aukaat” does not translate very well into English. Aukaat is a sphere of limitation imposed upon a person by virtue of his socio-political standing. A person is often warned in India, to stay within his Aukaat.
Conversely, “Liberty” does not translate into Hindi/Urdu very well. In essence, Liberty is the absence of Aukaat based limitations.
If you think about it, a culture decides to reduce an idea to a word when it appears frequently enough to warrant a shortcut for it.
It is really sad that in India, we have no word for Liberty, but have one like Aukaat.

Equations

Katte — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 06:21:07 +0000

So I have returned to college and it’s been fun so far. More on that later, but what I’d like to share quickly is this nifty tool for inserting equations into most editors. You can drag equations created on this page into almost anything on most browsers*. I used to have a tough time with this earlier. (I wonder if this is common knowledge, and I’ve been living under a rock)

So if you’re really itching to insert beautifully formatted equations, as I am sure most of you are, try this out.

(Site claim, I have only tested on Friefox 7.0.1)

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Katte — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 00:01:49 +0000

Original comic can be found at : http://www.smbc-comics.com/

Elementary

Katte — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 04:28:04 +0000

Joel Watson has a subtle point.

For more : http://hijinksensue.com/

Edit (12/12/2011): It’s months later, but I got to see Watson in action at our University! Unfortunately though, some of the joy was dampened by Cal beating us quite convincingly (Watson beat everyone with twice the points).

Ok Cupid?

Katte — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 07:07:06 +0000

I am a bit of a statistics enthusiast who often wonders about the difficulties in conducting very large experiments. Therefore, what the folks at OkCupid are doing is very interesting to me. This illuminating insight is a must read. While the article is brilliant, here are a couple of points not specifically noted there.

Here are the reply rates on OKCupid for men of different races:

And here are the reply rates for women:

Indian Males are the least replied to racial subgroup on OKCupid. If I make a disputable correlation with attractiveness, in an as widely represented pool as OKCupid’s, Indian Males are the least attractive racial group.

While Indian Males are the highest replying recipients for messages from Indian Females, the group that responds most poorly to Indian Males is – Indian Females.

Daimmn.

(Images from okcupid.com)

Fateh Ali Can’t

Katte — Tue, 04 May 2010 00:15:06 +0000

Much to the dismay of the crowd, but quite presumably, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s philosophical zombie refused to sing any qualia.

Restraint

Katte — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 03:40:28 +0000

The ruler of Dubai is rumoured to have haughtily chickened out of all suggestions to attack Yemen while looking at the Indian Ocean disparagingly and exclaiming, ”This is what separates Yemen from Dubai’s.”

Nithyananda Haikus

Katte — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:54:35 +0000

Way too much time on my hands, I know.

(Original image from consciouslivingradio.org)

Linus

Katte — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 06:34:15 +0000

Linus Torvalds saved this from a pack of biscuits I gave him. He said he was sentimental about it because it was a Finnish guy’s last Nice.

(Image by FatBoyTin)

Kausthub

Katte — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 03:52:57 +0000

Ram Singh was ecstatic the day he scratched a card at the washing machine dealership and won a calf. He was expecting a toaster. Surprised with the surprise gift, he named it Vismay. Nobody in Bilaspur, though, saw the humour in that. Vismay did calf things for a few years and progressed to cow things then on. She hung around with other cows, appeared thoughtful and never showed off while ruminating. She was a normal and mature cow in all respects and Ram Singh was pleased with the prospects.

Secretly though, Vismay was a very ambitious and well read cow. Whether the former was a result of the latter, or the other way around, one can only speculate. But en route her daily forage through the city she had found a used bookstore. There was a rather pious young fellow behind the counter there who would pick one book in very bad condition and throw it towards Vismay. He believed it brought him good Karma. On the first day Vismay gobbled up a 1986 Sports Illustrated with hardly a second glance. But eventually she made it a point to read what was thrown her way first and chew on it later. She sometimes grew impatient with Russian novels and ate it midway. Brothers Karamazov, for instance. But most books, she read till the end even if it bored her.

What interested her most was economics. She finished a hardbound version of The Wealth of Nations with lots of highlighting, in one sitting. It was an old copy that left an aftertaste, but she now realized the truth about supply, demand, money and middlemen. Keynes and Marx later, she formed some strong opinions and a hearty desire to make it on her own. She too wanted riches and a good life.

But you know how it is with cows and our society. There was nobody ready to take an entrepreneurial cow seriously. She would get shooed away from permit offices, auctions and academic circles. She would get honked at, jeered at, marked with vermillion, pushed, coerced, beaten and prayed to but not given a break. Nobody even understood her radical views in moo on the niches that could be exploited in Bilaspur’s supply chains. With dampened enthusiasm she resigned on her cause, went back to right outside Ram Singh’s home and set up a stall, for the sort of thing she was expected to do. Ambition quashed, and with a looming sense of loss, her stall proclaimed “Doodh Vismay Ka“

(A tribute to amit123. If I knew enough Hindi to figure out gender, I would have written the whole thing in Hindi; and also passed seventh grade in one go.)

Pawar struggle

Katte — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:58:34 +0000

Sharad Pawar had important people to please today. He was scheduled to meet the delegation of American investors in a private setting. He was no fool. He knew very well that a man in a suit with somebody’s money is just a more dapper version of the bureaucratic babu. His greed can be a very powerful ally for making things happen. But fulfilling greed is a difficult proposition. An easier alternative is building obligation. And there is no better way to build obligation than to indulge a respectable man in little taboos that the powerful have easy access to; little pleasures he will readily indulge in, behind closed doors. Because with secrets comes implied trust. With trust comes camaraderie. The money of course, will soon follow.

That is why he arranged for the topless dancers.

Her name was Sunaina. She could bend herself around a pole till she broke the hearts of intoxicated old men who had nothing to go home to and dirty foreigners with secret fetishes for chocolate skin. She was twenty two, gyrated to raunchy music with passion and shed her clothes in a smoke filled room with small people and big pockets. She put her heart to it like an artist and smiled when the spotlight shone. She put her legs around strangers who put money around her waist and picked up tiny pieces of fabric she’d put back on in a dark room when the song was done. But while she walked back from the stage, where the lights were dim and attentions astray, there was a distance in her eyes which was the only truth in the whole act. Sharad Pawar saw this and it made him strangely pensive. When his eyes met Sunaina’s he was suddenly overcome with an immense grief. There was something very sad about a woman who has to put a price on her dignity. He started weeping. He just couldn’t stop. The tears rolled down his cheeks and he had to excuse himself. He left the room in a hurry, trying hard to compose himself.

Amidst blaring music and disco lights, the visitors, though enthralled by his hospitality, could now see that it was true, a titty day woed Pawar.

(With style cues from krishashok)

Black and Voight

Katte — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 07:31:54 +0000

John Voight was a haughty old man. Nestled in the isolation of the rolling hills of Dehradun, he spent his days betting on inter-school bicycle races. Races, that were soaked as much in youthful exuberance as textbook Marxist class struggle. It brought him spare change and abandon. He could use it, helpless that he was against long inevitable lapses into misery that the stoic hatred his daughter buried in her sullen eyes brought about. Although she never said it, Jo knew that his infidelity had cost her her mother. He was repentant. But she would not forgive him. She owed that much to her mother.
Aamir, this year’s winner, knew this. He was drawn recklessly to the old man’s money and the fair maiden’s woe. Tired and bloody from a hard fought battle, he had earned the one glimpse he wanted of beautiful Angelina. So, as he collected his winnings from Voight and walked away, he strained hard towards the western end of the mansion. There she was! He could forget the exhaustion, his brother’s injuries, blistered knees, the winnings, the glory and sweat for this one moment. Angelina Jolie looked so serene against the blood crimson sun that it was hard to imagine that Jo ‘Cheater’ Voight sickened her.

(In honour of grand master Shenoy)

Workswell

Katte — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 07:20:35 +0000

You know how people say that you should do what you most love doing, for a living? I say fail. You should never try to make a living off something you truly love doing. That way you will never have to bastardize it for money or for the Man. Get a job you can live with, but not love too much. You can walk away easier in the evenings and secretly feel warm in your underpants because you’re the smart sonofabitch who can make a living out of even something you don’t really care about.
The only real goal should be to be good at what you do for a living and find time for what you really love doing.

Nine zeroes

Katte — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 08:45:34 +0000

India has a billion people today. And that is proving to be quite a handful. But I was checking up some numbers and it turns out that the Indian population is a remarkable story of human spirit. In 1901 India had only about 250 million people. In a hundred years, Indian mothers have carried another 750 million babies for nine months each; Indian fathers have toiled to feed these mouths and the Indian socio-cultural system that today looks suspiciously like it has little value for life, has proved, like a pudding in its eating, that it values life. A billion people did not die in the sweltering heat and ravaging disease. A billion people did not kill each other in spite of how little they have in common. A billion people shared scant Indian resources, and survived together on it. I need not emphasize on the fragility of life. We all know how little it takes to die. But be it in unjust situations, be it in cruel violations of rights, be it in ignorance and lack of restraint or contraception, be it with stifling customs, cultures and superstitions; a billion Indians lived to breathe this air. South of the Himalayas, surrounded by salty waters lies nestled, the second most fertile ground for the cultivation of the Homo Sapien, widely and in unbridled vanity considered the pinnacle of life on earth. Even if the majority of them are ignorant and lazy and filled with flaws any Indian can whine about, this super abundance of people is a definite wealth. Here are two billion hands with opposable thumbs. Here are a billion machines that will function perfectly with little more than input from naturally occurring flora and fauna. Here are a billion sophisticated brains that can memorize, learn and create. Here are a billion organic workhorses that leave no trail behind and decompose fully with no environmental damage. Here are a billion consumers for ideas and goods. Here are a billion hearts that will pump blood relentlessly while small bodies inch in unsophisticated ways towards more comfort, security and productivity. Here are a billion minds that wake up in the morning and set out to end the day better than they began it. And they can all make more of them. And quite well, as shown already. India’s real wealth is our people. All we need to do is get our people to value mediocrity less.

Only two

Katte — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 01:01:19 +0000

I believe in the basic goodness of people, i.e given zero or negative costs of doing the right thing, most people would do the right thing. (By negative cost of doing the right thing, I mean a reward). But that has now led me to conclude that, in essence, there are only two questions that need answering:

What is right and wrong?
What needs doing?

And looking around me, I see only four existing solutions:

It is up to the individual.
It is up to another individual (e.g monarchies, parents for young children)
It is based on a, sometimes periodically revised, set of rules that are laid out somewhere. (e.g religions, constitutions)
It is based on what the stance is of a group, of which, the individual is a member (e.g democracies, juries)

The above is based on other observations though:

An individual belongs to several groups the smallest of which is the individual itself and the largest is the group of all individuals. There can be several groups in between that the individual is part of voluntarily or otherwise, only some of which have mutually exclusive membership.
An individual is expected to conform to his groups’ answers for the questions posed above, if they exist.

It is obvious that given human nature’s affection for autonomy and freedom, individual happiness is maximized when the answers to both questions are left to the individual. But the worst case scenario for this approach is a total lack of anything being done and/or n different answers for n individuals. So for enterprise, the better approaches are the less attractive ones. In spite of this, most free and ‘developed’ groups restrict themselves to answering only the first question. Most groups also offer some form of reward for conformance and enforce costs for non-conformance. Only some of the rewards and costs are tangible. Others, most notably in religious groups, are ideas. The fundamental human conflicts arise out of having to choose between differing answers provided by groups that individuals are members of and weighing the costs against the benefits.

When it comes to what the stance of a group is, there are several options, some of which are the same as what is available to an individual. But a breakthrough idea here is a new kind of consensus whereby the group’s stance is a function of the group members’ stances. This function is sometimes a vote for majority; sometimes a vote for a supermajority and sometimes a vote for total agreement on what the group’s stance is. The farther away from the first, the exercised method is, the higher the average group member satisfaction usually is, but the nearer to the first the exercised method is, the easier it is to reach consensus. Democracy, a wildly popular counter-intuitive form of Government, is a result of this.

How do individuals end up being group members? Some groups offer membership by virtue of birth (e.g citizenship, default religion). Some groups, individuals voluntarily join (e.g the organizations they work for). Individuals join groups in the hope that group membership will entail rewards that are more beneficial than retaining autonomy when it comes to the answers to the questions. For example, living in a society gives an individual access to resources he would otherwise have to spend a lot more time and effort, to have.

In many cases, there is distinct advantage to be had when an individual does what the group has defined to be wrong. In these cases, individuals weigh the benefit (sometimes emotional) of the act against the cost defined by the group for non-conformance. Most groups cannot guarantee that a non-conformance will be detected by other members and put to task. Some of the reluctance to conform, comes from the knowledge about this non-zero probability that it might go undetected. Corrective systems, like the judiciary, strive to bring this probability to zero.

Life, then, is a sequence of decisions for an individual about how to answer these questions, which ones to conform to and when is the reward greater than the cost.

The cursed ones, though, notice that everything changes with a small shift in perspective.

Shiny Happy People

Katte — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:42:30 +0000

Success = Ambition/Empathy.

Nut Butterscotch

Katte — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:34:17 +0000

Renowned pillar of brotherhood and equality, Haagen Dasz, has confirmed what I long suspected : Indians will spontaneously combust upon eating ice-cream.

I am sure both King and Gandhi busted a nut in their graves.

————-

Update

————-

Turns out Haagen Dazs has a convincing and well thought out reply :

Excerpts :

“If people were refused entry momentarily, it was only due to overcrowding as there was a rush.”

“it emerged that what Haagen-Dazs really wanted to convey was ‘Now get a taste of abroad right here in India’.”

“An error was made in the creative execution”

Right after making bambi eyes like that, Haagen Dasz is rumoured to have farted and loudly proclaimed “It wasn’t me!”

Two words : Lame Ass.

Arun Veembur

Katte — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:13:21 +0000

One of my good friends, Arun Veembur, died last week. I am saddened by the loss to everyone who knew him; I am saddened that the work he was so passionate about was left incomplete. But the man deserves praise, like nobody else I know, for not resigning to the comfort of mundane commonplace existence. Arun was a brilliant man and would have done better than me and most people I know, at everything we do today. But he had the courage to follow his passion at the cost of everything that we hold so proudly as the trophy of our existence; the trophy that nestles us in an empty comfortable warmth. Arun died cold and alone, but he died trying to seek out more meaning out of life, than the muddled version the rest of us are content with. He died trying to live for his dreams, on an untrodden path. Most of us are unaware, but some of us know that the answer to the questons that bog us is not in what we are doing today. But we do nothing about it. We just live our lives, anyway. Arun, always, till his last breath, had the courage to find out if it was in the next thing that his heart said it might be in.

For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy. -G.K.Chesterton

(from Into the wild, Jon Krakauer)

Boost

Katte — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:45:49 +0000

A portion of your personal morality which dictates what you will not do, is shaped by your inabilities.

Peace to all

Katte — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:28:25 +0000

If Obama does indeed send the 40000 troops requested in Afghanistan now, I’d squirm in delight at the irony.
“We have come to kick your asses, bomb your homeland and liberate the shit out of this place. Says who?? Look here bitches; signed, Nobel Peace Prize winner. You want peace and we’re going to give you some. Go line against that wall now, single file. Do it!!”

Silk Route

Katte — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 19:46:18 +0000

The Great-Indian-Middle-Class-Formula-For-Success, the ruin of many a bright kid in India is a secret formula that many Indian parents hold dear and instill into unsuspecting children right after they’ve learnt to walk, talk and handle basic Calculus, which for Indian kids happens at age three.

It is a multi step program each of which is mandatory to be eligible for the next one:

a) Be a topper in school. Yes, every kid needs to be a topper. Special emphasis is on Math, Science and scoring more than Sarala’s kid even if you can run faster than him. Running means nothing.
b) Score above 90% in your X standard. 89.3 is acceptable as long as you are willing to bury your mother.
c) Get into the respectable Pre-Universities, and even more respectable tuitions. Here you will master the fine art of rote learning; a skill that will be critical for an entire two years of your life; and useless thereafter.
d) Ah, step D. The glowing beacon of pride in this program : Divide yourselves into Doctors and Engineers. As long as you can’t be Amitabh Bachchan, you have to be a doctor or an engineer.
e) (On the Engg stream) Get that campus placement into Infosys. Why are you not learning any puzzles by heart goddamnit, didn’t you learn anything from pre-university? There is always time to learn what Engineering really is about. Our country needs more software engineers, not software engineering!
f) Get “onsite”. America, UK, short term, long term. We don’t care. I did not feed you all these years to see an empty passport. And get one of those green cards, it will be very useful for the next step.
g) Fetch a bride whose parents claim she is convent educated, fair, slim, god-fearing and family oriented on bharatmatrimony.com. Hey, look son, this site is great! It only has girls who are like that. All of them. Wow! They must have a very stringent admission process.
h) Get to work boy. You have nine months. You need a child who has an American passport. Your time starts now.

Ah, how well settled you are. How successful! All you have to do for me to make sure you are, is invite me to America to look after your kids because nannies are very expensive. This is just like alchemy. You start with an Indian and end up with atleast three Americans. It works!! So what if you never *learnt* anything during engineering. So what if your real talent is imitation, not innovation. So what if nothing else gets nurtured or fixed in India except sub standard assembly line engineers who provide cheap labour. So what if you’ll hate how your kid is being brought up. Look at the money son. Look at how much money you are making. It must proportionately increase your happiness. It will son, just don’t think about it too much. Go buy something. Preferably at Walmart. That way we can return it after we are done using it. I will go, I can talk to all the other Indians in that line. It gets boring here sometimes.

Inglourious Basterds

Katte — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 23:59:04 +0000

*fake adulatory tone begins here*
Mr Tarantino, what a wonderful movie you made. It is so marvelous to watch a movie primarily about a bunch of Allied soldiers who kill a lot of Nazis. I thoroughly enjoyed it. And it is so funny that the Nazis in the movie are enjoying that movie with primarily a lone Nazi killing three hundred of the Allies. What poor taste they have! I laughed at them, aloud.
*fake adulatory tone ends here*

*repetitive Indian-style headshaking-in-disapproval*

I acknowledge the clever irony, Mr. Tarantino. I am just sick of the douchebags praising it while obviously missing the point.
Oh yeah, and the spelling is a cheap shot.

Three

Katte — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 02:51:45 +0000

It has been three years today since I started writing down stuff on this blog.
Oh, well.

All that

Katte — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 21:54:26 +0000

All that we should live for in our lives
is locked up
in a fist sized organ,
a pound of flesh
which beats and beats and beats,
pushing to its farthest reaches.
But it gets it all back dirtied,
and we live by our reason.

(11.29.2007)

Cold

Katte — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 20:51:09 +0000

The cold creeps up my feet in a vine like embrace,
crawling toward and ridding my heart
of the little warmth it holds
in distant memories,
and my fingers of the will to sense.
It imprisons me in an acute awareness
of isolation, the futility of my pursuits, the smallness of my stride
and the sad poetry in doomed fallen snow.
The barren trees,
the biting wind and the idle skies
dispense melancholy in abandon
and in the midst of such cold,
I yearn.

(02.23.2007)

Silence

Katte — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:57:40 +0000

Today I experienced absolute silence.
The kind of silence where
when I dragged at my cigarette, I could hear it burn;
I could watch the amber tip brighten
amongst tiny rustlings of burning mellow leaves
that were stringing a coda in the face of their destiny,
one last time
before they would partake forever
from the quiet of their ashes.
The kind of silence that quelled poetry is made of.
The kind of silence that could witness something end
and remain unfazed,
mature in its knowledge
of the insignificant hue and cry
that is always put up
at the final moments
of any voice that had made a deal to die,
for a momentary stray into its spotlight.
The kind of silence that’s laughing at the end,
from the beginning.

(12.30.2007)

Frailty

Katte — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:53:31 +0000

The frailty of all things created
with mighty opposible thumbs
is there for a few to see.
The rest lie unaware, unmoving, undone.

(02.05.2007)

Crimson

Katte — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:50:03 +0000

Putting a void in my heart
into which flowed poetry, sadness
and music that would flow through my veins
and stain my breath
with the deepest of crimsons.
A crimson that reeked of pain and beauty.
The crimson that shaded my words.

(02.05.2007)

Yonder

Katte — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:30:00 +0000

Yonder, the land lies
I saw in my gaze
The fare to where is
the best of my days

(8.10.2005)

Katte — Wed, 27 May 2009 02:54:48 +0000

View This Poll