Deepanjan Nag's Magnum Opus

The slumbering higher education department of Karnataka has woken up with a jolt to the noble cause of inculcating patriotic sentiments in the college-going students and teachers of the city and neighboring districts. To this end, it has issued a circular directing mandatory attendance of all students and faculty of colleges in and around Bangalore at Palace Grounds today to attend an anti-terrorism rally! Those failing to attend have been promised strict action. Call it a democracy of coercion! Around 25,000 are expected to attend.  The degree to which traffic across the city will be thrown out-of-gear is unfathomable. I’m even getting SMSes from Bangalore Police to avoid certain roads. What the hell were the organizers thinking? What will be achieved by those attending the rally braving the scorching heat? A few wannabe terrorists will suddenly be cleansed of sinister intent and choose to become great apostles of peace? Motivational talks by rotten politicians will launch a tho...

Call it the clarion call. I’ve been living on junk food for over a decade and it’s high time I turned to all the goodies that nature has to offer. Though food malls are a great way to save money, they’re pretty far from where I stay and my only recourse lies in the kirana shops and fruit carts. Here’s a comparison from what I purchased from the kiranas over the past 2 days: Kirana / Cart Food Mall Carrots Rs.20 / kilo Rs.10 / kilo Grapes Rs.50 / kilo Rs. 35 / kilo

I couldn’t pull myself away from this cute little bull dog. Since I couldn’t lug it around, I decided to harbor it in my blog. I must now think of a name.

Why am I always hungry? I never had such a big belly before! I decided to cut down on the cost of keeping myself fed in these times of economic hardship by building a ready stock of carrots. I heard they’re good for the eyes as well – should be handy in keeping me focused. If you need any irrefutable proof of just how abysmal a time we are living through, DepressionCooking should be it. It’s a treasure-trove from a great-grandmother who has seen it all before. Lap it up, people!

The tube light has finally ‘choked’ to death. It seems to have taken the entry of my energy-efficient lamp to heart and simply refuses to be lit anymore. Well, to be honest, it did work for a day or two…but that was it. There’s nothing wrong with my new lamp, just that it’s plugged directly to the switchboard and the height disadvantage hurts my eyes. Anyway, its 25W (equivalent to a 120W incandescent bulb) is enough for my tiny room…better than a dim extended source of light. My Twitter page, until now, had a near-black background. I slightly brightened it by ‘stealing’ a rather attractive background-image file from a site put up to celebrate the Oscar awards. One could also use it as a wallpaper. Why do I generally espouse dark backgrounds? Because, they’re more energy-efficient! They are easy on the eye and spotting icons also becomes effortless. However, they may be avoided if text is to be directly written on them. I’m sure most people have failed to notice that my blog’s b...

One could mistake the 81st Annual Academy Awards for being themed on India. So complete was the dominance of Slumdog Millionaire that I was actually tired of my own exaltation. I liked the movie but never imagined it fit for the Oscars. Rahman winning for the Best Original Song and Best Original Score was shocking. Was there no competition? Rahman is a genius by Indian standards, but ‘Jai Ho’ being adjudged the Best Original Song at the summit is impossible for me to digest. And what was so outstanding about the score? Anyway, the movie deserves adulation for its hard-hitting and in-your-face depiction of the lives of millions of people living in the ghettos of Mumbai. What’s incredible is that it took a British filmmaker to show us the ever-elusive ‘real’ India. Not surprisingly, Bollywood, which largely thrives on spinning a glittery world of ephemeral escape for those who have to struggle hard to make ends meet – many of whom stay in ghettos, hasn’t been overtly enthusiasti...

I remember scouring a city years ago for a CD player. I chanced upon an audio store with 2 women at the counter. I knew it was a waste talking to them about the technical details of what I was looking for. Still, I tried my luck and asked unenthusiastically if they stocked CD changers. One of the women looked at me quizzically and asked – What’s a CD changer? Educating people was not what I did for a living. I didn’t pursue the issue any further. The tube-light in my room has been having problems for the past few days and we suspected it was the choke to blame. I thought it better to buy one of those energy-efficient fluorescent lamps than to get the choke repaired. I had spotted an electrical shop in our locality and decided yesterday to buy the lamp from there. Yeah, I didn’t know it was manned by a woman. I asked for what I was looking and the woman showed me some. Not once did she volunteer to show me what was available, I had to specifically ask. And after I had pestered her eno...

T he International Association of Outsourcing Professionals has announced the world's best outsourcing service providers in 2008. Following are the top 10 global outsourcing companies, excluding the Indian firms in the list: The Top 10 global outsourcing companies Accenture (Rank 1) IBM (Rank 2) Sodexo (Rank 4) Capgemini (Rank 5) Hewlett Packard (Rank 8) EDS (Rank 12) ACS (Rank 13) CGI group (Rank 14) SPi (Rank 17) Colliers International (Rank 18)

I learnt at a forum yesterday of the sad and untimely demise of Mrs.Meera Sinha, my former Hindi teacher and principal of GSPS. If I was mortified of school, Hindi must be partly to blame. The onset of every academic year was like an exercise in morbid speculation about who the new agent of terror would be in the form of my Hindi teacher. If it was a familiar face, at least I wouldn’t have to suffer all over again the ignominy of letting someone else gradually discover how poor I was at the subject. My formula for subsistence during Hindi period was simple: keep yourself glued to the bench as long as possible, hide behind anything or anyone, never utter a word and never raise your hand. In effect, keep a low profile and be as invisible as possible. I wouldn’t always manage to escape unnoticed though. When the piercing gaze finally fell on me, it was like laser cutting through my head and discovering nothing inside. I would then offer a silent prayer and hope for clemency. I knew it...

I love looking back, especially at landscapes that have gifted me with fond memories. This explains why I’m constantly on the lookout for news on Fergusson College. I’m happy to learn that my college, an ever-enthusiast of astronomy, has been celebrating the International Year of Astronomy in a big way, the latest being a 1-day workshop for the non-teaching staff. Here’s more .

Today marks the 200th birth anniversary of the man who was recognized by TIME magazine as the greatest iconoclast of the last millennium. Indeed, his ideas are so radical and avant garde even for the present generation that academia all over the world covertly avoid mention of his On the Origin of Species as it directly contradicts cherished ideas propounded by religion. Theists, emboldened by mankind’s innate vulnerability to embracing ideas of self-preservation, have steadfastly refused to assimilate evidences that prove the contrary.

Twhirl is a fantastic Twitter client. It’s bewildering how the modes of communication keep changing.

What a relief! Having already introduced a third foldable berth between the two side berths in around 7,000 AC-3 and Sleeper class coaches in the past few months, the Indian Railways, facing immense flak over passenger discomfort, is ready to give the idea a quiet burial. Even as the Railway Ministry recently sought a feedback on the move from the travelling public by putting up a feedback form on its reservation website, senior Railway Ministry officials told The Indian Express that an “in principle” decision has already been taken that no new coaches manufactured from now on will have the additional berth. Also, the Railways has dropped the idea of retrofitting another 9,000 coaches it had planned to earlier. However, the existing “high-capacity coaches”, as they are called, will continue to be used by passengers, said ministry sources. “A significant sum of money has already been spent in providing the extra berth in around 7,000 coaches. While most of these coaches...

Didi finally has Internet access at home and we spoke over Skype yesterday for over an hour. Diya sounds so sweet! Buada did all the hard-work with the initial setup.

I received a mail from the webmaster of EyeFloaters asking for an unbiased review of the site on my blog. It’s tempting but I must politely turn down the request as I wouldn’t like to deviate from the primary purpose of my page – to log my (mis)deeds.

Didi & I…when life was at its sweetest.