Want To Become A Pilot?

A woman fakes documents (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Woman-pilot-faked-papers-for-licence-after-failing-test-7-times/articleshow/7583939.cms) to get a pilot license. Apparently there are people available in Delhi who can "get you the license". Reminds me of what I mentioned in an earlier blog (http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2011/01/capitalism-at-its-best.html).

I wonder how many such spurious pilots are there in the system. With people like these piloting our planes, god help our planes and our passengers.

Ice Cream From Breast Milk

Ice Cream from Breast Milk (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1360225/Shop-sells-breast-milk-ice-cream-London-restaurant-Icecreamists-Baby-Gaga.html) on sale in UK.

Hmm. I thought of a name for the brand: Breastkin Robbins.

What next? What else will we sell now?

Additional reading:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2017/07/25/i-donate-my-breast-milk-heres-how-and-why/?utm_term=.26d39c738726

Sri Lanka Vs Pakistan World Cup Cricket Match

I was watching the Sri Lanka Vs Pakistan World Cup cricket match played at Colombo tonight. I was hoping it would be terrific and so it was when Pakistan was batting. Then the Srilankans came in to bat chasing 270 odd runs. The run rate dropped to a trickle and at 30 over into the Srilankan innings, the hosts needed a run rate of about 10 runs an over. 

I thought it was all over. That Pakistan had won the match. Then I saw a series of misses. Stumping chances, catches. A bunch of them missed by Pakistanis. What should have been a cakewalk for Pakistan turned out to be a tough match. 

Eventually Pakistan did win the match with about a ball to spare. If Pakistan continues to field like they did today, they might as well go back home.

Middle Class India In The 1970's

I read this today (http://www.funtoosh.com/jokes/indian_jokes/472) and thought how true. This is how it was across India for the middle class with small variations.

There was not much of a variation in the lifestyles of you and your neighbor and your cousin. It was pretty much the same.

I still remember the day I visited my uncle's place. They had a TV and there was a large bunch of neighbors who had gathered around in their house to watch some popular program on TV. I was standing at the door. My aunt didn't recognize me. I had not seen them for 6 years and they were not expecting me. My aunt asked to come in and watch the TV program.

Life has changed a lot today. There is a vast difference in lifestyles between the lower middle class and the upper middle class today.

Target Verification

The other day I had an argument with a friend. She was explaining that when you are trying to achieve a target, you start with the target and go about with your plan of achieving the same. You should not question/revisit the target.

I strongly disagreed. I said the target may be incorrect. Maybe it was not thought through. She hmmm'ed and haaw'ed. But still was not convinced.

I gave her an example. Let's assume I told you my target was to get married to Aish (ex Ms World). Would my friend take that target to be gospel truth and work on the means to achieve it or would she prefer to negotiate with me on my target and change it?

Now I have to tell you something about my friend. A smile doesn't come to her too easily. The last time she smiled was about 30 years back. But then on that day when I explained about the target she burst out laughing. Not only that, she gave in immediately to my idea of a target verification step.

She could have shown a little more grace and empathy and not laughed like that. At least she could have made a show of working with my target and trying to make it happen.

But the way she burst out laughing and capitulated completely...

Needs And Wants

I came across a nice story on needs and wants. I usually don't like to paste content from some other place. I prefer to provide a link to the source. I search for the content in google and i usually get a (or a lot) reference. 

Like this particular story that I read now seems to find its place in a lot of blogs.

• http://akssara.blogspot.com/2010/09/postpone-what-i-want-to-do-for-what-i.html
• http://www.shayri.com/forums/showthread.php?t=71690
• https://prafulkr.wordpress.com/2010/09/02/postpone-what-i-want-to-do-for-what-i-have-to-do/

And possibly many other blogs also. I am reminded of a story titled "A=A+1" which used to do the rounds 20-25 years back. It was a nice catchy story how a typical middle class engineer from India goes to USA and then goes through a series of milestones in life (finishes graduate program, gets a job, buys car, gets married, has children, buys a house, wants to return for good to India but each year he has a problem (a new car loan, drinking water in India is not good, huge mortgage for house, children are too young, children are too big etc), so he promised himself "Next Year. I will definitely quit and go back home to next year". The return to India for good never happens. 

While the story by itself was interesting, what was really funny was the number of acquaintances who claimed that it was their brother-in-law (who was the original Chetan Bhagat, "a bright middle class engineer from IIT who made good") who wrote it! Wonder why most people chosen a "brother in law" as the person who wrote it.

Coming back to the article on needs and wants, it seems quite similar to the article on Adam Khoo (http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2009/12/inspirational-share-with-children.html). And well written.

Cathedral Picture: Before And After Christchurch Earthquake

I saw a picture of a cathedral in Christchurch after the recent earthquake and a picture before (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12554732).

Click the "Before" and "After" links to see the two pictures.

Pictures Of Jalani And Her Co Workers, Finally

I have been asking Jalani for her picture and those of her boss and his wife etc. Finally I got them. Here they are http://www.funtoosh.com/jokes/office_humor/156

(Guess which one is Jalani).

Strange Incidents In And Around Calcutta

I read a couple of stories about life. The first one was about a man A who shot another man B because A believed that B had taken A's wife (C) away. (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata-/Bigamy-case-leads-to-murder-in-court/articleshow/7552894.cms).

Now it seems that B and C were married with a child. How come A believes that B had taken A's wife from A? Hmmm. And the shooting happened in the court. Hopefully it should not take the court years to figure out what really happened.

In another incident a lesbian couple in the state of West Bengal committed suicide. (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata-/Lesbian-couple-commits-suicide/articleshow/7543306.cms). There are a few interesting points that struck me.

• One of the girls Sucheta was 18 years old and married and lesbian. Wowowowow. Quite a lot for that age. I mean how come you get married at that age? How come you got married (to a person of the opposite gender) at any age if your sexual inclination is different?
• And "an activist lamented that homosexuals are hounded and killed". Is the activist saying that this suicide note is a hoax? Or is he saying that suicide not or not, he always believes that homosexual people are hounded and killed. Because most people hate the idea of man being with man and woman with woman. And so these two girls were kinda forced to commit suicide? So it HAS to have been a case of murder?

Bengal is strange.

Corrupting The Mind

I read this (http://www.funtoosh.com/jokes/life/198) today and I was fascinated. How interesting it is to corrupt a clean mind. You have to know the right spot to "touch" - which in this case was avarice through 99 gold coins.

Guruji fondly calls me Ellsworth Toohey. Toohey is a character from Rand's novel "Fountainhead" who has a keen perception of people around him and goes about corrupting them. He is superficially a nice person but deep inside he is out to control people and create a negative impact on them. I wonder why Ayn Rand created that character. 

Different Perspectives, Sex

I read this and loved it. http://www.santabanta.com/jokes.asp?catid=10390.

Made me think. How different our perspectives are and how two of us think of the same event so differently.

The Law

I had long wished for cleanup in our government and in our politics and in our industry. The impunity with which we (in India) circumvent laws is difficult to digest (read: http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2011/01/capitalism-at-its-best.html).

And the DMK office was searched by CBI couple of days back. I doubt if CBI found any incriminating evidence connecting the ruling DMK party with kickbacks received for its (shall we say friendly) disbursement of 2G telecom licenses.

Nobody is above the law. Not the two pieces of s*** that have been the heads of state in this state for the last so many years. Not the industrialists like the Ambanis. Not the religious/caste minorities (with their "you cant to do this to a minority, we are entitled to misbehave. Bombing is our birthright") nor to the perpetrators of the Godhra.

We are on the right track. But, we need to speeden the verdicts. The way our processes and our courts work now, snails and tortoises overtake us. We should aim to settle the biggest of cases in about 6-12 months (as against 15-20 years now). That would mean improving the infrastructure for the legislative process, handle conflicting objectives of being provided with a lot of power while still being incorruptible. We need a mechanism for learning from our mistakes and incorporating the learnings.

When will this happen?

Cases pending in Supreme Courts: https://newsstand.google.com/articles/CAIiELzLeHnM-90FG4hLXGvuRuoqGQgEKhAIACoHCAowzrL9CjDC7vQCMK2y1gU

Oh My God, Obama Is Out

I was reading an article today about a royal wedding in England. Beckham and his wife, the bride's ex boy friend (and his ex girl friend and her ex boy friend etc) have been invited but not Obama.

Wow. They do have a way of deciding whom to invite and whom not to.

I remember when Charles got married to Diana almost 30 years back to the day. The event was celebrated in a grand style then. There were commemorative coins then. But the bride of that day is no more.

And now we have another marriage coming up. Don't we all want to know who has been invited and who has not? It's such an earthshaking event. And the millions of pounds of tax payer's money that the government (or royalty) will spend on this event should be juuuuust fine.

And then a friend sent me this article
(http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Man-held-for-raping-teen-daughter-for-two-years/articleshow/7550645.cms). A man repeatedly raped his teenaged daughter in Mumbai. I have read a similar incident in the same place Govandi (a slum in north east Mumbai) about a year back.

From marriages to rapes nothing seems to change in the world.

Make Money Online (Or Offline)

A friend who is worried about my financial state gave me a link (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/How-to-rake-in-more-Mistresses-go-online/articleshow/7544451.cms) today which she thought would be useful in my business.

And people today are more net savvy and they have more disposable income. Husband and children are not home most of the time. There is a huge market out there.

This gives me conviction that it is possible to make money. One day I will be the best there is in this business, way ahead of Salman, John, Ranbir etc.

Thanks Jalani.

High EQ

A friend sent me this and I liked it.

http://www.citehr.com/317497-just-think-about-man-his-pant-avs-s-desk.html

Comments On My Blog

I don't publish comments on my blog. A reader(s) left some comments recently. I thought why not.

I have started publishing comments that are impersonal and left anonymously.

Subsidies To Air India

So Air India has a debt of Rs 40,000 crore (about $9 billion) and seeks another $500million loan from the government (http://in.news.yahoo.com/vayalar-ravi-cracks-whip-on-air-india-top-brass.html).

While the article in the link above doesn't talk about the P&L of Air India, it is quite likely that they are making big losses and having a huge cash flow problem.

Now we have other carriers like Singapore Airlines which perhaps is doing much better. We have our own Jet Airways which is doing ok.

Why do we need to pay 1crore/annum (approx $250,000 annually) salary to people and still have this mess? The government is firing a few of these employees. How about firing a chunk of unproductive workers? Whatever loss the government is making comes out of taxpayer's money.

But then we have a trade union. And it's a sacred cow: giving guaranteed jobs. One of the government's objectives is to help the poor. Are we helping the poor better by running this airline or would we help better by divesting off?

Probably the best thing would be to take the Airlines through an IPO and hand over management to someone else and get rid of this monkey(s).

Large Family

Today I read an article (the link doesn't work now). It is about a man with 39 wives, 94 children and 33 grandchildren, all the family living under one roof in the north eastern state of Mizoram.

Wow, if there were some great grandchildren, his family would be larger than European states like San Marino, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Vatican etc.

I wonder how all the wives live in the same house. And the children. And whether the man will remember who is part of his immediate family and who is a neighbor.

Sikkim: Kanchendzonga And Bhutan

I came across this article today

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/features/life/article1465236.ece

It looks so pretty, doesn't it? Sikkim is an amazing place. I have seen pictures of the capital Gangtok. It's far cleaner and more beautiful than equivalent places like Ooty in the South.

It has the countries of Bhutan, China, Nepal, Bangladesh (and the Indian states of Assam, Bihar, West Bengal) within about 250km. By Indian standards, 250km is a very small distance. North to south India is about 4000km and east to west it's more than 3000km.

This link (http://www.answers.com/topic/thimphu) gives a good insight into Thimphu. Bhutan is quite clean (in every sense of the word) and quite expensive also. It costs upwards of Rs 10000 per day. The rates are usually all inclusive (hotel + food + jeep + driver/ guide + permits etc), meaning you can't book into a hotel separately, hire a car separately etc.

Death Of A Neighbor

Today I came to know that a lady, a neighbor for many years, died of a cerebral stroke. She was not very old, must have been in her 60's. She was a very sweet woman and very nice. Rarely have i seen her angry or yell at anyone.

While she and her husband were not wealthy and they had there own financials troubles, she was invariably generous and polite (it's difficult perhaps to understand what I say unless we have seen the average person in these parts). There used to be a time when they were well off but then they had fallen on troubled times. 

I admired the way she handled those crises times in her life. She was a lady.