Mr. President and the first... girlfriend?

President Sarkozy's visit has put India in a fix. And why won't it? Girlfriend Carla Bruni "is not considered wife or spouse". The Indian government is at a loss for words when it's coming to choosing the right protocol for Ms. Bruni.

Sarkozy and Bruni did not leave behind a stormless wake in Egypt. An opposition member of the Cairo parliament even accused the French president of being party to "official prostitution" in the Islamic country. Reactions in India are unlikely to be as harsh as the Egyptian politician's comment, but there are doubtful looks all around.

The Indian foreign office is likely to leave it to the French governmnent, through its mission here, to suggest if Ms. Bruni should be granted First Lady status.

If Bruni is given First Lady status, the Indian government will have to assign the couple to a single room and fix a separate program of engagements for her - shopping in Janpath, meeting women/spouses of important people, ensuring she is seated next to Sarkozy at banquets etc.

But if she is not to have official engagements, she will have time to spare because Sarkozy will be involved with the intricacies of the Eurocopter and nuclear deals in bilateral relations.

However, it is most likely that Ms. Bruni will be given privileges of a delegate accompanying the president.

Sources:
The Telegraph, 6 Jan 2008
IBN Live
http://www.nydailynews.com/img/2007/12/26/amd_sarkozy.jpg

Paying for music: As you like it

I am not much of Radiohead fan. But a certain stint of theirs caught my attention. This British alternative rock band formed way back in 1986, rising to fame with the release of The Bends (1995) and OK Computer (1997). Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001) saw the pinnacle of their popularity in the music industry.

In October 2007, they released In Rainbows. Apart from the music itself, the USP of this album release was the fact that it was available online with a BLANK in the cost field. The artists requested fans to pay what they felt was appropriate. Official figures of sales were not released, but it was reported that 1.2 million copies were downloaded on the very first day, and as it turned out, more people paid for it compared to those who did not. :-)

"Pay what you want", they said. In my opinion this was something wonderful... an intelligent step towards anti-piracy. Music artists should get paid for their talent when we download their songs. Otherwise it's just plain stealing. However, when it came to evaluating the price of their music, they handed the reins of judgment to their fans. "Pay what you feel like for our efforts." While some paid the standard cost of $0.99 a song, some were more generous.

Though by some standards it might seem like foolhardiness, I feel that when the artists pleads in this way to the music lover, a personal note is struck - "Please don't steal this music... we have worked hard towards it!" It makes a greater number of people NOT download it for free.

Picture courtesy: http://www.byte.org/images/piracy_2Dkills_2Dmusic_2D.gif

Wah... Tag boliye!

A therapeutic tag. I volunteered myself into this. Thanks to Amrita, though. :-) As Amrita says, it is not therapeutic in the real sense, but Jawahara's calling it that, hence she's calling it one too. And thereby I call it a therapeutic tag. A list of 10 things I miss in my life right now and another list of 10 things I would like to achieve within a decade from now.

10 things I miss in my life.
1. I miss a fully functional right foot. I miss all the sports fun I could be having if only this right foot had not been hopelessly sprained more than two years back. It's yet to recover. :-(
2. I miss the beaches in Chennai. In fact I miss any beach. But Thiruvanmayur (Besant Nagar) Beach, Chennai in particular. I miss the times I used to go to the beach at midnight, sit there watching the waves. I used to watch sunrise, have steaming sambhar-idli at Murugan's Idli shop in the morning and come back to the hostel to sleep. Some of the brightest ideas of my life I got sitting at the beach, e.g. wearing floaters to the beach and not shoes.
3. I miss having a younger sister. I have always wanted one. Always. Someone to take care of and pamper and spoil. And always have gifts for. I envied my friends with little sisters. A kid brother would do too, but then, I am the kid brother.
4. I miss my days at school. By all standards they were carefree. Mischief was fun. I miss my old friends with whom I am barely in touch with...
5. I miss the time I used to have nice conversations with complete strangers at Barista or Cafe Coffee Day or even in the college fest. The best part was that I never met these people again in my life! I just have not had the opportunity to do that here in the US. Sigh.
6. Summer vacations during college days when I went home. I used to wake up regularly at 10:30ish. And sleep late.
7. I miss eating pani-puri at 4 pieces a rupee in Baroda. I used to hog, and even converted my parents into pani-puri fans. It's close to impossible to get pani-puri at that rate and taste here in the US.
8. I miss some of the daily food my mom used to cook. In fact I miss them so much that I don't even want to try to cook them. Reason? The last memory of my eating that must be a good one. :-)
9. I wish I had a more eventful life or a better memory to jot down 9 and 10. Deep sigh.

10 things I want to achieve within a decade from now.
1. Learn that fancy keyboard lying in my room for a year, gathering dust.
2. Take formal lessons in movie editing and in advertising.
3. Take some fabulous, really fabulous shots using my camera. And get recognized for it. :-)
4. Tour Europe. Go to every country on that land. Spend good time there. Tour New Zealand and Egypt too!
5. Stay in a Dubai hotel at no expense of mine.
6. Sky dive. That should be done next summer, though. :D
7. Visit (not just drive through) all 50 states of United States. 9 and counting. Visit Canada too.
8. Fly an aircraft. (Ha! Yeah right.)
9. Learn at least three social dances completely, tango being one of them.
10. Play with a tiger/lion/leopard cub with the mother tiger/lion/leopard nearby. In the wild. And not chicken out.

I tag: Devashree, Amit, Gaurav, Sunando, DreamCatcher, Charumani

What the HONK!?

Kolkata traffic can be summarized in a few words as "Honk, honk, honkity-honk, honk honk honk." Puncuated liberally by the yell, shout and the sound of the rickshaw blow-horn, which I swear, was invented to emulate a dog's yelp.

When I landed in Kolkata airport that morning, I took a deep breath to smell my country. And I got the familiar aroma of singara, kochuri, luchi aar aloo'r dum.

And the whiff of urine someone had relieved himself of. Smoke, beedi, diesel, petrol and lebu-cha (lemon tea). :-)

City of Joy.

In the taxi ride from the airport to my residence, to put it simply, I was sh*t scared. The driver was maneuvering through traffic like a complete maniac, with barely a few inches margin between the car and the object of terror. Brrrr. Pedestrians and bicyclists were treated like maggots. And the incessant use of the honk to get into that little space between the bus and the road divider. Oh wait, THAT'S NO ROAD DIVIDER! That's ANOTHER BUS! May be the bus was used in the 1942 Quit India Movement. Those things should not be on the road. Really.

Anyway, in retrospect, may be Indian driving has always been like this. May be I always needed to cross roads like that because everything on wheels was out there to kill me. May be because I have seen a different kind of driving in another law-abiding country, lawlessness on the road is more pronounced. Meanwhile, I wonder... before getting used to the US style of driving, I wondered... when I used to drive in India, did I drive like a madman too? Probably.

Photo courtesy: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20061223/nat.jpg

And then he burst into flames

I am extremely prone to static electricity. Especially in the winter, I get charged up every 10 minutes and I am giving off sparks (Exaggerated. Don't sue.) whenever I touch any metallic surface. And on several occasions, I have given tiny shocks to friends on contact. :D They were NOT amused. Not that it's ecstasy for me either. That's why I hate wearing fleece. And sweaters. And dry winters.

But let me tell you this - if you are in a dark room and sufficiently charged up with static electricity, observe closely when you touch a metallic surface. If you are lucky, you can see a faint spark. :-)

The unfortunate (and scary) part is, I came across theories for Spontaneous Human Combustion (SHC). It refers to a phenomenon where the human body burns without an external source of ignition. It is a subject of controversy and debate, as this is not proved to be a natural phenomenon. The most widely believed theory is that clothing is set afire due to a heavy discharge of static electricity. There are quite a few supporting (but inconclusive) cases where people were capable of carrying 30,000 volts in static and they caused small flares either at their workplace or in their own clothing.

From Wikipedia:
[...] The professor explained that under certain conditions (walking on carpets during dry winter weather, for example) almost anyone can build up an electrostatic charge of as much as 20,000 volts. Hence the shock we sometimes feel when touching a car door or other metal surface. Usually, the electricity is harmlessly discharged through the tips of the hair; however, the professor claimed, there are some people (he guessed around one in 100,000) whose abnormally dry skin permits them to generate as much as 30,000 volts at a time. In certain circumstances, he said, such people may be highly dangerous. They may, for example, have been the detonators that touched off explosions in hospital operating theaters whose atmosphere contained an admixture of anesthetic vapor and air. In addition, the professor was convinced that workers in ordnance factories and petroleum refineries should be tested to discover whether they have the type of skin which retains electric charges more persistently than others. [...]

Here's SOUTHPARK's take on Spontaneous Human Combustion. It's hilarious! And a Calvin & Hobbes strip that was published once upon a time.

Heh! :-)