The RD Rudeness Survey

Amit wrote about it and I agree with him on the fact that the survey is anything but scientific; it ignores the vast cultural differences that exist between the west and the east. Let's forget the cultural differences for now. 
We are a country of over one billion people. Mumbai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area  in the world. The population density of Mumbai has to be way higher than that of any western city. This means that an average Indian has to work harder than an European or American for routine tasks like catching a bus, shopping, riding, driving... we, those that live in Indian cities, just don't have the time to stop and say hello even to people that we know, leave alone strangers. Indians that visit USA for the first time are bound to be taken by surprise when a stranger says hello. We don't say hello to strangers for the simple reason that there are too many strangers. If I were to say hello to every stranger I bump into, I will die of hello-fatigue.
It is that simple. There are too many people! Does that make me rude? If yes, well, too bad.

The population of Mumbai is about 13 million.
The population of NY is a little over 8 million.
New York City had a rate of 2,800 crimes per 100,000 people in 2004.
Mumbai recorded 27,577 incidents of crime in 2004.
NY is the safest city in the USA.
Wham-bam-thank-you-Sam.

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The Perfect Love Letter - 2

Continued from Part 1:
The veteran's sole purpose in life was women. He used to boast that he 'maintained' four girl friends simultaneously. Don't ask me what that means, I am still figuring it out myself. He carried about dozen letters on him and as and when a girl captured his fancy he would walk up to her, ask her name, pull a letter out, fill the blank next to 'dear ----', and give her the letter. Anyway, while hanging out at Ravi's (he is no more.), next to VijayaMahal Talkies (it is also no more.), the veteran bummed a smoke from me and we got into a conversation. 'So, how's your girl?' he asked me, as he let the smoke drift through his bunny teeth. I was surprised and elated too. Not too many in my gang had any girl friends, I don't think they do even now. We were such losers when it came to women, it is not even funny. 'I don't have a girl, what are you talking about?' I answered. He flicked the ash off his smoke, seriously admired the ants that were busy running around on the ground, and whispered, 'You want her to be your girl, no?'
I couldn't confide into anyone in my gang. They hated women. 'Why do you need women when you have VCRs and god-given hands?' was the guiding principle of the gang you see. They thought a girl friend clipped your wings and exhausted your emotional, intellectual bandwidth. So, I was only happy to talk to the veteran. At least he admitted his unremitting, unwavering love for women. I clarified to him however that he should not confuse what I feel for her with what he generally felt for women. 'Mine is pure love and yours is lust.' I told him. He laughed and said, 'what's the ****ing difference?' I had no answer for it so I borrowed a line from Ramesh, the god of love for Greamspet, Chittoor, 'the consummation of love is sacrifice and that of lust is guilt.' The veteran laughed and said, 'you'll die a virgin, I am sure.' My heart shuddered at that thought and I sent a little prayer immediately, to avoid such a catastrophe.
Anyway, I explained my problems to him; how my height, weight, lack of facial hair, lack of bicycle, money... you get the drift? Yeah, I asked how could I manage a breakthrough and occupy her heart. 'Write a love letter with blood.' He said. For a moment, I was dumbstruck. That was pure genius. He also added, 'write it with ink first and rewrite on top with blood. She anyway calls you her friend... not brother or something, so I believe you have a chance.'
'Where do I cut myself? How much blood do I need for four pages?' I rattled. He said, 'why do you want to cut yourself? Find a frog or a garden lizard or something. Are you ****ing crazy?'

The next morning I started drafting my letter. I had bunked school under the pretext of fever and as soon as my dad left for work and mom settled down with her Kumudham, I started writing. I am not going to humour you with the contents of the letter but let me outline it for you. It sent a very practical yet moving message. It used lines from the ELS Volume 1 collection (especially from 'go ahead and rain', 'up where we belong', 'I'd love you to want me') and it had translated lines from QSQT songs. After I drafted the letter I also changed my hairstyle. Suri had suggested it because he thought that the more I look and talk like Aamir Khan, the better my chances are (sorry Aamir). I hid the letter in my Chemistry 'Notes' notebook and went to work on my hair. I was pleased with the way my hair parted in the middle, just like Aamir's. Only, my mom asked me 'since when did you become a fan of Karunanidhi.' I ignored her comment, for she is old school you see. I stepped out into Edward's farm looking for big garden lizards. I hated frogs. I could find only juvenile garden lizards that were too thin. I wanted an adult fothamucker. I found one lazing on a boulder but he was too quick for me. I took a coconut leaf and made a noose out of it. Even that didn't help. After spending roughly two hours, I decided that I'd rather cut myself than chase them stupid lizards. In between it occurred to me that I only needed blood and I almost made up my mind to cut Suren, my kid bro, up with a Panama blade. But then my dad would have cut me and fed me to the same lizards in Edward's farm. So I chucked the cut-suren's-a$$ idea. That's when one of her friends bumped into me near the gate of my home. We generally did small talk before she told me 'she is very upset, did you hear?' I went 'Why, why, why, why? She said, 'Yeah, this guy gave her a love letter?' I went limp and asked 'And?' She said, 'it is not so much about the letter you know, but this moron actually wrote it with his blood!' I asker her 'you mean rewrite with blood on something already written with ink?' She said 'nope. pure blood. And she thinks all those boys that do nonsense like this should be ashamed of themselves, you know what right do they have....' Her voice trailed off and I walked into my home like a Zombie. [...TO BE CONTINUED]

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The Perfect Love Letter - 1

Before the advent of e-mail or the SMS, we boys used to write love letters on paper (sometimes scented paper or those with the romantic watermarks). I couldn't construct a coherent sentence in that girl's presence; my knees never stopped shaking when I was talking to my first crush. She would ask me questions, make fun of me, and chide me in her Alanis Morisette voice and I would watch helplessly as mangled, phonetically impossible sounds escaped from my mouth: 'hrppgkkt?' 'hroonkjlt!' 'aaa ba err!?'

I decided one fine winter evening that I had to write to her to get the message across. And of course I swore to myself that I'd start wearing only full trousers and burn all my half pants. My folks thought that I was too young for the trouser. I was only 15 they said. While most of the boys in my class had started shaving, I was frantically applying ghee, Olive oil, curds, and what not to my face and sent a little prayer every night before bed 'make that ****ing mooch grow!'

My baby-boy image was, according to me, the biggest stumbling block in my amorous pursuits. So, there I was utterly confused; consumed by love and with no facial hair. To make things worse, competition for her heart came from boys that had ample facial hair and of course bulging biceps and bicycles (BSA Mach 1 with small balloons attached to the rear wheel; he used to circle her house and the cycle made that awful noise 'tapa tapa dapa'.) AND, and... I was all of four feet five inches. I sat in the first bench with the other midgets and stood right at the front in the line during school prayer. There you have it. A frail midget with no facial hair wearing half pants. I wasn't exactly setting the heartbeats of the girls racing. Most girls (the 'cho chweet' types especially) thought of me as a kid brother, while some went as far as 'I am your aunty.' Now, 'the' girl made it clear that we were 'friends.' Add to the list my pathetic scores. D.K., the first ranker, was short but the girls loooovvvvvvved him. And, he had some facial hair. So, there. How was I going to win her heart? The score, even before the match started, was Love-4.

After consultations with my super juniors (who were of my height and except Suri, who was born with a beard, no one had started growing facial hair) I decided to write a love letter. That was the only way; it appeared then, that I could get the message across. The first thing I did was analyze her personality (audience research if you will). 'What kind of a person is she?' 'What kind of movies moved her (QSQT did. Big time)?' 'Is she receptive to humour?' 'Is she the emotional, melodramatic type or the cold, calculating, practical type?' 'What songs does she hum and what lines are her favourites?' The list was comprehensive and we thrashed it out and created a persona that was practical, emotional, humour-loving, musically inclined, and apathetic to romance. Score: Love - 2678.

However, we figured that Indian movie music was too, um, poetic and used a lot of exaggeration. Enter: Everlasting Love Songs (ELS) Volume 1. I listened to the songs on ELS 1 but I couldn't figure out a single word. I tried cracking 'Waiting for a girl like you' by Foreigner but gave up after some 1000 attempts. 'Don't you think it'd help if you used ear phones?' someone suggested. So, I bought a pair of 'TAKAI' ear-phones and promptly threw them in the trash can. The TAKAI ear-phones made any singer sound like Donald Duck. I didn't give up though. When I went to Chennai I visited every music shop worth its name asking for the lyrics booklet. One good soul told me I should try and get a song book from Higginbothams. Unfortunately, I hadn't too much money to buy these books. They were selling at about 100 bucks each and ELS songs did not figure in them, the song books only had the current music. Back to square one.

I was restless and could not sleep. My competition was growing too. One of the contenders now circled her house in a TVS 50. I don't know why but I never gave up on decoding the ELS songs. One night, when the whole house was sleeping and my dad's snoring was rupturing the silent night, the sound 'Ritfeesooright' from the Foreigner song, decoded itself in my head: it was 'it feels so right!' Eureka! What a fool I had been. One phrase after the other, the American lingo fell in place. I know, I know what you are thinking 'Why couldn't you google for it?' Dear reader, in 1989 the google creators had just started growing facial hair and were probably pursuing girl friends in high school. So stop showing off.

Anyway, I had the lyrics of the Foreigner song but I could borrow only a couple of lines. I couldn't use 'this heart of mine has been hurt before' I mean, this is my first crush you see. My second project was 'If ever you are in my arms again' by Peabo Bryson. I finished decoding the whole ****ing album but it wasn't helping. I mean these guys were singing of holding and kissing and making love... no way I could use those terms. I mean the Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu movies always glorified 'pure' love as one in which the involved parties didn't even hold hands before the marriage. The hero just wanted to keep staring into her eyes and was willing to spend his life doing that and wanted to do the same in his next births. I mean WTF!? That's when one of the veterans of love-letter writing unknowingly gave me a brilliant idea.
And, that will have to wait until part 2. I promise that I will finish this story. Mother promise!

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Technical Writers of India (TWIN) Portal Launch

Yours truly will be talking at this event. I was responsible for implementing the CMS (Drupal). Be there if this piques your interest.
Start: 2006-06-10 16:00
End: 2006-06-10 18:30
Timezone: Indian

Where: Nahar Heritage, St.Marks Road, Bangalore
When: 10th June (TODAY!) between 4 and 6:30 P.M.

Event sponsor: Interwoven Inc.

Agenda of the event:

a) Welcome - Sandeep Balakrishna (TWIN Admin)

b) Formal launch of the TWIN community/portal - Mr.John Thomas John is the Vice Dean at the Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media. He has 34 years of experience in journalism in India at Deccan Herald, Indian Express, Statesman and Vijay Times, and Reuters, Agence France-Presse and Business Times abroad. His past work has taken him through a variety of roles from sub-editor, reporter, foreign correspondent, news service head, commentary and editorial writer to being a special projects man and media technology evangelist. He has also had brief academic involvement with two other journalism colleges in India, in addition to his recent part-time association with IIJNM. For more information, please check out http://www.iijnm.org/pro-faculty.html#john

c) About the implementation and the CMS, includes a demo of the portal - Pradeep Vasudev and Suman Kumar

d) How TWIN has evolved as a community - a few senior technical writers

e) Recognitions

This event is free for all and entry is purely first-come-first-serve.

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Tezaa: Wisdom of many

Say you want to know what are the best places in Chennai for beer. What are your options? You ask a friend or fish some article using Google... Your chances of getting quick, accurate information are not always bright. Tezaa.com is just the service for you if you are in search of 'Social Wisdom.' One of the first Web 2.0 services from India, Tezaa is a community driven knowledge-base (KB), which uses polls, primarily, to attract information. You can start a poll on just about anything... Technology, eating out, movies, politics... The best part about Tezaa is that it is blazing fast.
Tezaa also offers other interaction, information retrieval features like tags, comments... why don't you give it a spin? And hey, spread the word; Tezaa is from India and we need to encourage innovation at home.

Visit Tezaa.com

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