The day the music died...

It was somehow scripted if you follow the law of averages. Starting from the greatest ever Mozart to Beethoven,Gobain to Jim Morrison, Hendrix to Elvis –all the greatest entertainers in music who ever walked this planet, albeit walked for a shorter time and left a void in our heart for eternity, and now joining this elite club of "early goers' is Michael or Mikaeel Jackson.
His chequered career of 50 odd years was full of entertainment in every sense. Like his predecessors, he too could not escape the radar of controversies and drugs. He went a step further to mess up his life with controversies such as- paedophile,
sex change and skin transplantation to name a few. But for all of our generation who grew up listening and seeing MJ, his swan song is definitely no music for our ears.
Western music for us was Synonymous with MJ. He was the God on stage. The master of moonwalker stunned his fans for decades by his songs and dances. Come to think of the greatest dancer ever, MJ would be hands down winner. I still remember the first English audio cassette I bought. It was the cult- “ Thriller” and I can proudly say that I too contributed to the record 50 million copies it sold worldwide. The first time I saw this larger than life persona on T.V. on the hit number “dangerous” I became his instant fan and spent my whole months pocket money to purchase an archie’s photo of his, which still adorns my study room’ s wall.

But, sadly it was the drugs or rather the overdose of it that again played the party spoiler. Marylyn Monroe, Hendrix and even Gobain could not escape from the clutches of drugs. There seems to be some uncanny correlation amongst drugs, music icons and the manner they die because their death becomes as much a part of controversy as their life. Or perhaps it is the best way designed for them to leave their footmarks on our hearts as Kurt Gobain once mentioned “ Its better to burn out than to fade away”. But whatever comes out of the autopsy, he will always be remembered as a person who inspired millions both on and off the stage and a great ambassador for world environment.

Rest in Peace - MJ

My Epitaph for him: The best Moon walker that ever walked on Earth.

F.I.A. vs F.O.T.A.

F1 pit stop: FOTA vs. Max Mosley

Though I am not a ardent fan of F1, yet I try to soak in whatever news I can about this mother of all racing competitions, called Formula One. This year’s championship which is already in the midway is making more news for its off the track activities than for the on track activities. The pulling out of Honda and Honda bases Super Agura provided the first big dent to this year’s championship. And now the FOTA all teamed up against the FIA big boss- Max Mosley to make sure he doesn’t get away this time is sure to put brakes on this smooth going Championship for the last six decades.

What's the fuss all about?

Max Mosley-who is the President of the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile(FIA) has been holding his position since 1991 and during his tenure has brought many radical changes in the rules of the F1 Championship, not willingly accepted by the teams and has been a sore eye for the teams concerned. This time, he crossed the line by declaring a budget cap of 40 million Euros for every participating team and this decision of his has become the center of storm that is beginning to tear apart the championship.

The reason cited by Mosley for this budget cap:

“It is very difficult for a major manufacturer to continue in F1 when they are economizing in their factories by shutting off every other lift, turning down the electricity, not cleaning the windows, not serving coffee at the meetings.
"A company that is in that sort of situation is unlikely to go on pouring massive money into F1. So there is a danger, and that's what started the whole thing with the new teams.”


The real motive:

1) He probably wants to give the new entrants equal piece of the championship pie by easing out their competition level with the likes of Ferrari and BMW because a budget cap would ensure that the big guns do not splurge huge amount of money on technology which would make the beginners too difficult to catch up to.
2) He also seems to encourage more and more new entrants so as to minimize the monopoly of the big ones who have become a pain in the ass for the FIA boss to execute his plans freely.

FOTA and its concerns.

Formula One Team Association (FOTA) is formed by the nine big teams in the FIA such as Ferrari, BMW, Mclaren, and Toyota etc who have always had issues with FIA and Mosley in particular because:

1) of refusal to grant them a bigger slice of Formula One's gross income
2) the insistence on charging such high fees to circuit promoters that ticket prices are unnecessarily inflated,
3) and the failure to establish rounds of the championship in North America, an important market for the major manufacturers.
And if these above concerns were not enough, the latest salvo of budget cap seems to be the final nail in Mosley’s F1 Championship coffin because not only FOTA is hell bent on the removal of the budget cap, they now want Mosley out of the F1 circuit too, so that they can initiate talks with Bernie Ecclestone, who controls the commercial strings of F1 Championship. The FOTA seems to have made up their mind to hold a new championship henceforth consisting of the original nine teams and the new entrants if any.


Mosley’s reaction and the predicament of F1 fans:

Mosley, it seems wants to have his own way. He seems to be least bothered about the FOTA’s decision of hosting a new rival championship from next year. He even went on to comment on the lunacy of one of the team’s manager’s decision, which has further added fuel to fire.

The F1 fans no doubt will be having a tough time deciding on their loyality. Drivers and circuits would be caught in the middle. One series might have Spa and Silverstone, Hamilton and Raikkonen. The other Monza and Suzuka, Alonso and Kubica. So some would watch F1, some would watch the new championship and the rest would stop watching either. And the same goes for the sponsors which every year pump billions into F1’s coffers.

This is not conjecture. Exactly the same thing happened with the Indy Car championship. It finally re-united last year after 14 years divided - now a pale shadow of its former glory in every respect.

caught between the devil and the deep sea...

If the backbenchers were not enough to torture Mr. Zende, the University system did little to provide respite for him. The exclusion of practicals for mathematics paper stripped him of any dominance he could have had and exposed him in the open without cover. The students, as soon as they got to know about this chink in his armour- if armour is what you would call, they won half the battle and made him their easy picking. Had Mr. Zende read the story of the bird caught in the bull-shit and how the moment she made noises she was on the menu list for the passing-by fox, he would have fared better. But Mr. Zende who was apparently in a truck full of bullshit, the sinusoidal frequency of his babblings were always enough to attract the backbenchers.

There are a plethora of incidents that took place during our one and a half year acquaintance with him. One such incident occurred during the early stages of the 1st semester. Mr. Zende, though by none of his faults, suffers from what you may call –slight astigmatism and to make matters worse, has a temper shorter than his height. One day it so happened that some middle bencher thought of impressing some chick sitting on the first row and for no obvious reasons thought that throwing a chalk at her would do that. It is difficult to say which classic movie inspired this move of his, as he picked up a piece of chalk lying nearby and took an aim at her, but sadly to say that his aim was as much off the mark as his thought process of impressing this chick. Now, if this Romeo had had some basic understanding of Mathematics and Science, he should have known that you don’t have to use a trajectory path to hit a target as close as 10 feet. Even if you being blindfolded, throw a chalk at a target as close as 10 feet, you would at the max miss the target by not more than a couple of feet, but on this occasion, the chalk hit the ceiling fan rotating at full speed and the chalk now headed (with extra momentum provided by the fan) for the head of Prof Zende who at the same time happened to turn at the direction of the throw (maybe because of the sound of the chalk hitting the fan).

The chain of events occurred so fast that nobody had any reaction time whatsoever, and Mr. Zende not having the best of reaction times took the full blow of the chalk, which hit him like a bullet. Now, short people generally have big ego and moreover you don’t expect someone like Mr. Zende, being assaulted in the public domain to take these misadventures sportingly. For the first 30 seconds he did not move, and for the next 30 seconds all he did was moving in arbitrary directions in quick steps (maybe a way to get rid of the hallucination which he received at the impact of the chalk). The next 30 seconds saw the sinusoidal waves coming out in ultra frequency from his lips, which was difficult even for the backbenchers to catch or comprehend.

Mr. Zende the teacher now became Mr. Zende the detective. In a desperate bid to catch hold of his unknown assaulter, he started trying every trick in the book only to notice he didn’t have many. He urged the students to come up and confess, first by coaxing and then by threatening. No response.
“ Good then, if nobody owns this responsibility, the whole class would suffer. I’ll flunk everybody in the practicals ” -came the threat.

“But sir, we don’t have practicals in Mathematics” replied somebody instantly from the back and the whole class burst into laughter.

The retort hit Mr. Zende harder than the chalk and any step backward for him would be a embarrassing defeat. So Mr. Zende decided to take the matter into his own hands. He started to apply permutation, combination, Newton’s laws of motions; translational and rotational dynamics all into one theory to trace the origin of the chalk trajectory and unfortunately the backbenchers became the usual suspects.

The backbenchers, living on the one side of LOC were ready for such calamities and allegations and had all the cards up their sleeves. These are the people who would not own responsibility even if caught red handed, and now when they were as innocent as the chalk that landed on Mr. Zende, were all ready to swing into action. Meanwhile, somebody leaked the classified information about the abnormal turn of events that was taking place at this class to the adjoining class and a huge roar of laughter emanated from there. This time, it didn’t require the entire mathematical and physical hypothesis for Mr. Zende to figure out the source of this sudden change in the decibel level in the serene atmosphere of the college.

Mr. Zende darted towards this source, as a hungry lion would do at the slightest rumblings in the grasses. The backbenchers saw this opportunity to payback Mr. Zende for the false allegation and so somebody from their group closed the doors of the class from inside. It seemed that the hitting of the chalk had enhanced Mr. Zende’s hearing capabilities now, because no sooner did he hear the shutting of the doors in the first classroom, he made a desperate attempt to hold his position back, but it seemed he ran out of all his luck that day.
Not only did he fail to breach the doors, but also ended up knocking down his knees on the rostrum of the other class. If this predicament of his was not enough, as soon as he left the other classroom, some backbenchers from the other class did exactly the same thing- closing the doors from inside.

Mr. Zende desperately tried knocking on both the doors but to no avail. All he could hear was continuous laughter from both the classes and this time even his heightened olfactory nerves could not decide which was louder.

The beginning

Mathematics has always been my favorite subject and so I have always had special regards for the people who carry out this integration of all the permutation and combination of rationalizing the core concepts on the derivative minds of the students who dread this subject with all probability and find a good percentage of their interest on other subjects. But since Mathematics is the basic subject that you cannot do away with, so are the Mathematics professors. All the mathematics professors I have come across in my career have some unique features, which differentiate them from the other. Probably, the operating system of their brain is always so busy in number crunching that they find very little time to attend to other senses, which are necessary to average out their common disposition. So while one Prof. had the unique habit of writing on the top most part of the black board, which he himself finds difficult to carry on, the other had a unique habit of using a particular part of the board and doing all the calculations on the top of other written formula that would put a resource utilization manager to shame. But none of the Profs come even close to the race when it comes to Prof Zende and his eccentricities.

The first look of him will give you a wrong impression of some clerk in a government office, but then in mathematics it’s all about assumptions and majority of these assumptions go wrong. A second look at his demeanor will perplex you further. You would feel a trespasser has accidentally gone astray and is looking for a way out of the college premises. And if you happen to meet him outside his restricted domain (class) chances are there that you will be treated as a “non local variable out of scope”, which his compiler will not be able to resolve. Add to this, his astigmatism and you get a complete package of 45 min live cinematic excellence which can go on to win the best documentary in the Academy awards if there had been a category for “Seriously funny documentary”.

Coming to his physical appearance, you can identify him easily in record times even if you happen to visit a Zende look-alike competition. Not more than 5 feet tall, white haired and rectangular specs disproportionate to the area of his face. Dense white moustache on a black complexioned background that makes a sinusoidal wave as he speaks, but the waves emanated seem distorted on account of the frequency with which he releases them. Mr. Doppler would be happy to come out of his coffin to work on this particular case. The first benchers are not receptive enough to catch hold of his words and the backbenchers don’t bother catching. Add to this the short stature of Mr. Zende that puts constraints on his usage of the upper part of the blackboard, which makes the backbenchers literally hearing and visually impaired. The relationship shared by the backbenchers and Mr. Zende is a special one. There is a mutual harmony on paper, the same that exists between two hostile nations across an LOC. No side wants to make the pre-emptive strike. Both acknowledge each others presence and the “omerta” is well respected. But there are times when some foreign powers are always desperate to break this harmony. The middle benchers-just like the “left” in the parliament are never satisfied with the equanimity of the class and tend to tread on the thin line- that virtually exist between the two warring sides.

So whenever these middle benchers feel the need to make their presence felt, the omerta is broken and what results is a heavy exchange of artillery between the two sides and what follows is an account of such incidents. (to be continued...)

Remembering the F.R.I.E.N.D.S

What the original Rembrandt could not accomplish on canvas, the group Rembrandt did that gracefully on the hearts and minds of all those teenagers who grew up watching the cult F.R.I.E.N.D.S on television. The melodious title track that ran for a decade on the TV will run for eternity inside us, every time reminiscing us of our salad days and filling our heart with renewed nostalgic musings. The Central Perk- a small coffee bistro in the heart of New York city will outlive in our memory as a busy and vivacious hub which witnessed the making of new friends (Joey and Ross), secret crush of Gunther for Rachael, the blossoming of love for Chandler and Monica and the eccentricities of Phoebe. What started as a simple, easy going story of six friends –each having a different profession and background, attached only by a common thread of friendship went on to make a big impression on the world of sitcoms that would forever change the way we look at the reel and real world.

The first episode starts with Rachael running away from the altar to search for true love, ends up meeting the five friends and finally finds the true love in his childhood friend and secret admirer-Ross who reunites with her finally at the end of the last episode last season-ten years later. The other couple Monica and Chandler had had their share of arguments, fights and love and finally moves out to embark upon a new life. Phoebe finds a wonderful husband in Mike and Joey is left alone-though he seems happy to be (the way we know him). Their journey of ten years presented friendship in the most purest and selfless form where each one is ready to sacrifice for the other and to stand for each other. If the eviction of Joey from Chandler’s room caused many a heartbreaks, his returning back was cheered and celebrated by all and sundry. If the break-up of Ross and Rachael gave sleepless nights to the viewers, their reunion in the final episode could not have ended the sitcom on a better note.

The songs of Phoebe will be remembered as much as her eccentricities, whether it’s the unusual background she hailed from- living on the footpaths after her mother committed suicide and father left or her twin sister Ursella, different from her in all respects. The “smelly cat” and her guitar becomes as much a part of her existence as her friends. The happy go lucky nature of Joey – envied by all and loved by all –tell its own tale. His boyish innocence, childish stupidities and adorable personality won many hearts – on and off the sets. No wonder, Chandler always felt insecure in Joey’s presence. The sweetheart of the sitcom- Rachel could not make coffee but the flavors she added in everybody’s life required no additives. She was a breath of fresh air and suddenly saw her popularity skyrocketing. All the other characters too basked in the limelight and glory and made clean sweeps in the grammy’s on many occasions.

The “How you doin” pick up line of Joey and the childlike enthusiasm of Ross for dinosaurs needs no elaboration. Many popular Hollywood stalwarts like Brad Pitt, Alicia Witherspoon etc made special appearances but none could overshadow the six friends presence. The hilarious mix-up of situations like the one where Ross came to know about the pregnancy of his lesbian wife who decides to raise the child with her girlfriend or the one where Chandler sleeps with Joey’s sister and could recognize which one or the one where Ross kisses Chandler’s mom or the one where Chandler sleeps with Ross’s sister, Monica during Ross’s marriage to second wife Emily which soon breaks up when Ross takes Rachael’s name during the vowing ceremony. Despite all these, they remained the best of friends and provided non-stop entertainment and fun especially at a time when the world was saddened by the 9/11 episode. The freshness and the originality of the concept won numerous hearts and defined an era of Friends.
Though the last episode was very agonizing, knowing the fact that the central Perk will never host those memorable moments again and the viewers will have to take their evening coffee in the absence of the F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Sadly but truly, all good things come to an end. The six friends parted ways to start a new chapter in their life, where they will make some new friends and some new stories. F.R.I.E.N.D.S. provided some of the best years of my life and I’ll always be happy to have covered my own journey at the same time as theirs.

VPP- Vada Pav Package aka Virtual Pooling Program

Controversies and Satyam have become synonymous. Since the day Raju Uncle alighted the ferocious tiger, the latter has been mauling whatever it can. If the 7th January revelation send the moral of the hapless associates plunge deeper than the stock prices of Satyam, the latest salvo of VPP has made them further dig a hole and bury themselves.

The VPP is nothing but a euphemism for “goodbye and we will never call you”. The java people will understand the term VPP better if they do an analogy with the garbage collection method.
Garbage collection is something that comes into action when an object (associate) becomes useless. It is no longer required by the classes (System), which created it, and so to release the memory (salary), which becomes an overhead for the JVM (Management) to bear. So it calls upon the System.gc() [ VPP] method for help. Once this method is called, the JVM is rest assured that the object has been cornered and will be forced to be garbage collected.
The VPP, which is a mastermind of the people at the helm of affairs, is a countermove to the government’s plan to interfere, has been tagged as the ‘Vada Pav Package” which in Indian cuisine, is a poor man’s hamburger.

The loyal associate are the ones who will have to swallow this bitter pill, and are sure to have their gastronomic balance disturbed. They have been given the raw deal and associates like me, who are at the bottom of the food chain, have no options left on the plate. We as objects know that the System.gc() has been called and its now not a matter of “how” but “when”. The epicure in us has fleeted faster than the clients and sooner or later we are going to choke in the crumbs of the Vada Pav.

Under the dietary instructions of the Vada Pav consumption Plan (read VPP rules), we will be served the basic Vada Pav and that too without the “chutney” (other pay) and it will be a take home package. Basic health coverage will be there in case you choke on one of those or get yourself food-poisoned. You’ll be free to visit any restaurant of your choice and order any item at your own cost. But what is difficult for us to digest (other than the goddamn Vada Pav) is the fact that other restaurants have initiated “ no admission without reservation (referral)” policy and so the epicure in us will sooner be a malnourished blighter.

Clearly the days of binging are over and the company can no longer pay for that. We are sure to loose some weight and a lot of confidence, but there is light at the end of the tunnel or so to say “some food for thought”. The dietary interval or the so-called “sabbatical” can be utilized to develop some new taste buds (hobbies), to serve some “langar” (community service) or to refine your taste and create some more hunger for success which will help you overcome this food crisis and develop those extra fats that would serve you in future crises.

And truly as described by Milton Friedman in his book-Moon is a harsh mistress –“ There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”

curious case....continued

Mr. Murphy also suggested that when everything is going fine, there is something wrong in store and so the pleasantness of our renewed journey was further cut short by the fuel injection pipe which finally decided –enough is enough and that it cannot be exploited anymore. The engine shut itself off and refused to be awaken by even the ferocious kickings of Mr. Vinty and so we decided to take a respite. We parked our bikes on the side lanes of the highway and kept the rear lights on so as to avoid any further misfortune. The pangs of 6-6-6 again resurfaced when Manhuge dialed on his mobile to check for the latest updates on the India – SriLanka cricket match going on that day. The score on the mobile screen (I can bet) gave more jitters to us than the poor Indian side .The score was 166-6 (the magical figures again presenting itself in the least expected disguise ) and the respite turned into a high level conference amongst us- the agenda being – to continue the trip inspite of the obvious omens which would make the remotest non superstitious person take a couple of holy dips in Ganges , or to throw in the towel and call the trip off.

But giving up easily was a practice never exercised by our young turks and I really appreciated the motivation and determination of the team on a mission. But it soon dawned upon me that the exact motive behind carrying on the journey forward was that the going forward was the only option because there were no mechanic shops behind and the fuel injection pipe was not willing to be treated by anyone else than a mechanic. So we accosted a passerby to get some idea about the possible distance to the nearest village or a mechanic shop. No sooner did the reply came than we decided, its over. The nearest mechanic shop was in a village which was exactly 6 kms away and there had been an accident that afternoon in which six people died.

I have never had experienced a live horror of such magnitude and a coincidence so uncanny. I could see the same emotion on the other five who were literally shivering at the reception of this incredible revelation. All the determination and motivation were now fleeting more vigorously than the petrol from the fuel injection pipe was and putting all the dots together in retrospection showed that going ahead will a wrong decision and so we made our way back and finished the journey the very next day without a hitch.

I don’t know how much of this will anybody buy, but this was a series of incidents actually occurred and I can bet Mr. Murphy would have got real value for his time(if only he actually got off his coffin….)

Curious case of 6 friends on 6-6-6

Before I divulge this fascinating tale of six friends on an adventurous journey on 6th June 2006,
Here’s a preamble I would like to present
“All the incidents presented henceforth are facts and true to the best of my knowledge”

There are times when insignificant things occupy the better part of your brain and make you brood over thing that might go undetected at normal times. This thing may be an omen, premonition, presentiment, magic or call it whatever you may but is something you cant get rid off in a hurry. The morning of 6th of June was no extraordinary day. A fine day with a beckoning weather –a time to go out , hang out with friends or go on for a long drive- specially when you have nothing better to do. We had buried all the semester papers of our Engineering career for good , and there was no scope of it returning to haunt us ever. The heart was feeling lighter those days and a bike trip to some adventurous place was in the offing.

It was after the trip been decided and all the addition/subtraction of manpower and resources( read friends and bikes) we came to the ugly notice that we have 3 bikes – that equals 6 friends and the time of departure at 4 pm to a place called lehnadri- which is some 200 kms from Pune. People who undertake these kind of trips( and especially Indians) would be aware that a delay of a couple of hours is within our protocol and is never debated and so the earliest we could start was exactly 6 pm according to my watch and it was at this felicitous moment when our heart was full of compassion for human race and mother nature and all thing bright and beautiful- that Manoj – the prankster of our group brought out his greatest finding of the day- 6 people at 6pm on 6-6-6. The revelation felt more ominous than somebody sneezing as you start for the day and then a couple of black cats crisscrossing your path. To say that we all got a shock of 230 Volt AC current wont be an understatement because however rational and non superstitious you are, there are at times when the powers surrounding you are so strong that your brain superimposes the frequency immediately and foretells you that something not so good in awaiting.

But when you have a group of young bloods who don’t give a damn to all these antediluvian aspects of the human race and mother nature and want to have their share of adventure and pleasure- there is no looking back, especially if you are bedeviled enough already internally that you have no issues with your external counterpart. So began our memorable journey – on board
Shiv, Abhishek, Vinty, Manhuge, Ritesh and Me.

Those of you who believe in Murphy’s law would agree that this day was one of the rare occasions where Mr. Murphy would be more than happy to leave the comfort of his coffin to behold his theories getting proved- not that they don’t occur otherwise, but as in his pious words-“ If a series of damages is to be done, the first one will be the most damaging” so was ours, primarily because that particular damage would be the precursor of the other damages that would follow. So Mr. Vinty very proud of his calisthenics on bike, rammed into an innocuous scooter and passed Mr. Murphy’s hypothesis with flying colors and set the chain reactions for events to follow. Mr. Vinty with formidable build took the jolts of the crash in high spirits but I cannot say the same for his poor fuel injection pipe which bore all the brunt and didn’t even bothered us by showing up (which is again Mr. Murphy some hypothesis , that the most important and costliest item will be the first to be damaged and would be the last to be detected). That also proves that Mr. Vinty was neither important nor costly.

The fuel injection pipe finally decided to show up only after we had covered a considerable distance from the city and where there were no repair shop (Mr. Murphy seemed to add all the external factors possible to facilitate the outcome). The appearance of the culprit was however overshadowed by the appearance of the digits on the speedometer which was- 666 (hard to believe? but my friend, truth is stranger than fiction) .The fuel injection pipe craving for importance and attention now started leaking profusely and somewhat made us wonder if it ever carried so much transaction before (Mr. Vinty’s bike seldom carried so much petrol and it might have impossible for the fuel pipe to work at this enhanced capacity) but the appearance of the number considered to be the devil’s incarnation on the speedometer , made the bike look spooky and haunted for a moment and suddenly Mr. Manoj or manhuge who was the pinion rider once again started babbling about his wonderful discovery of the correlation of the omens. Undeterred we decided to move ahead and keep looking for some mechanic shop in the en route.

The highway through Nasik fata is generally a busy one and one that is always swarming with a lot of mechanic shops on either side, but that day it was wearing a deserted look –probably because of the truckers strike going on that day. So we decided to give Mr. Vinty’s bike cover, as we skimmed across the Nasik-Mumbai highway. (to be continued…)