Ben and Paul

Paul Krugman, I came to know recently has been nominated as one of the most influential thinkers of the century ( Naom Chomsky went on to win the poll). I have been a regular reader of his articles in The Hindu. But, when will he stop cribbing about everything that happens in USA and more specifically in the White House. Now its like you read his articles and it opens up a pandora's box of complaints and cribs. He was last heard complaining about Ben Bernanke 's selection as the new Fed Chief. ( Ben was Head of Economics Dept at Princeton). Incidentally, Ben was Paul's boss at Princeton.And Paul actually predicted Ben's appointment back in Feb. So, why the cribbing??
Apparently, one needs to be overly critical about a lot of things to be a "great thinker" or atleast to be nominated as one.
1600, Pennsylvania Avenue seems to highly accident-prone region these days.. "Libby" out , Harriet out and who is next?? Dubya still has 4 years to go...

Global Warning

These days I am getting to read doomsday prophecies especially from the stable of the Guardian newspapers related to global warming and arctic meltdown and how the world oil output has peaked....My take-- A picture is worth a thousand words.

I could not think of a title

Rain Gods seem to have taken a liking to the Indian metros this year!! Mumbai,bangalore, and now chennai!! water water everywhere...(thankfully there is enough to drink in chennai!!)
Coming back to my previous blog and a comment posted by Mr.Vengal.. I would like to clarify that I have deliberately stayed away from coloring the blog in religious hues.The post was intended to remind how some of our instincts have not fully evolved with evolution. I am pro-darwin!!

Fear

All that we do,all that we do not do, all of our actions, conscious and unconscious, boil to down to one simple thing,one primary vestige that has remained within us from the time the human race came into existence, and that is FEAR.
Look at every action of yours.Look at what you have done today.Apply the "Five Whys" (as the Japs call it) and you will realise that somewhere deep beneath you were afraid of something.We are all animals at a very basic level.We need to survive.We need to protect ourselves.And as animals , even to this day,continue to live ,fearing the hunter,afraid of being a prey, our human race has built around itself a fortress of civilization.
And inside the ramparts of this fort we cozily believe that whatever we do has a motive driven by our desires which we attribute it to our civil nature.And almost bordering on hypocrisy is our tendency to claim that we are beyond "the sum of all fears".
If people apply fairness creams it is because they fear being dark in color,if people brush their teeth it is because they are afraid of cavities,and the big "soap-toothpaste" selling companies are actually selling fear.But, that marketing manager does not know that it the fear itself which makes him sell fear.

open book exam

today, for the first time i wrote an open book exam.there was such a lot of anticipation about this exam.but the book in the end did not prove to be all that useful, as is the case with any open book exam!!

Reconciliation

I have suggested Bala to divide the queries into macro and micro queries after 2 more stunning questions were put to him since my last post.
The queries are as follows:
"Bala, when is the cyclone going to hit Chennai?"
Now hear this,
X:"bala, where is Nandambakkam in Chennai?"
Bala:"I dont know"
X:" I ll tell you the pincode, can you then tell me where it is?"

Bala has reconciled to his query-servicing hotline status.

Meanwhile, its pouring cats, dogs and other four-legged animals in Chennai.

Poor Bala!!!

There is a friend of mine here in my class. His name is Bala. A very sweet chap. He is a resident of Chennai. And he was helping a lot of North Indian guys in settling down in Chennai. But, Bala and me believe that the northies think they have landed on Mars. they think this place is so bad that without Bala's help nothing can happen.
This has a led to quite a few hilarious questions being put to Bala ,remember bala also stays on campus, just like others. so here we go:

"hey, where do you find cobbler in chennai?"

"at what time does the cycle shop behind the taramani gate close?"

in the mess: "hey bala, which of this is sambar, and which is rasam?"

"can you drop me to Melody theatre and come back alone?"

"where do you find single room acco near IIT?"

"my cycle key is stuck in the lock, where is your Pulsar?"

"how far is spencer's from IIT?" and this is the feedback after returning from spencer's..."oye, you told me it takes 20 minutes , it took half an hour.."!!!

this is the height, though i dont believe its true: "hey bala, how many underwears should i get from Delhi before comimg to chennai?"!!!!!!!!!!!

Lazy

The quarter finished yesterday.I lazed around today with a definite purpose of lazing around.And the weather was also fabulous.It poured in the afternoon.
Read up Archies comics today, and also determined to finish Pelican Brief by tomorrow.