thŕattle

Both NDTV & CNN-IBN announced their own winners of the Indian of the Year awards. Well, we are a billion people & we have more people to be appreciated for their work. :)

Personally, I felt that the categories for the NDTV’s award are a bit ridiculous. When they have something for Music, why not Cinematography? Category for “Contribution to Cinema”?!? Cut! Cut! On the other hand, CNN-IBN had meaningful categories for the award. However, their ceremony wasn’t well conducted. The chief guest for the evening, our Vice President, Mr. Mohammad Hamid Ansari seemed little detached.

I live in the 1st floor of an apartment. I go out to hang my towel on the string. Some guy from the street screams, “Madam!”. I turn to him. He, this time screams, “Sir ____ kaavala?”.

I waved him so as to say that I don’t need anything. Got into the house & undid my plait hair!

Update #0:
It happens, again today! An auto driver calls me “Madam”. This time not because of my hair, but my legs. Bloody guys, was it mine waxed or something? Ho Man! The world around conspires to make parody of me! :(

• Was thinking of 3 people in the past 2 weeks with whom I had lost contact. All the 3 got in touch in some way or the other. :)
• Wanted to watch a particular movie one more time. Felt a little lethargic to find it. A few days back happened go to my colleague’s place. He offers me a DVD which has this movie along with a few others. You know how my face bloomed? :)
• I generally walk back home from work. Yesterday, while walking, was thinking how this recreation & resort culture is upcoming. How one has to attract tourists, the facilities that can be offered, etc. Whether it has to be a farmland or some hill-station, activity centric or for relaxation, all such & such,… I reach home & I see my roomie. Asked where he has been for the weekend. He replies, “Been to _this_ hill-station to see a land to buy. Thinking of developing a commercial property!”.
• Mutual funds is other thing. Was looking for a good one last week. Someone who doesn’t know about this, sends me a link on how to choose the right one.!

Like the Alchemist says, something like “When you are in need, the whole world around conspires to help you in getting that”. Hope the trend continues. :)

WYTIWYG: What You Think Is What You Get.

After several days of procrastination, here we go with Tata’s Nano. Was keeping tabs with the recent AutoExpo for 2 reasons, one was obviously for the people’s car, Nano.

At 1st glimpse, the Nano reminded me of a smart car that Russell Crowe rides in A Good Year. Here is the shot:

With this, he zips through France’s country side to take a look at his vineyard.

When Ratan Tata unveiled the Nano, I felt he was submissive & made it sound very ordinary. There was no dramatization nor boastful talks like Steve Jobs did for iPod Nano. We should be really grateful for Ratan Tata for keeping the promise. Now more people can be on the move with 4 wheels. Long time dreams of several Indians would come true. Nice.

One significant impact that Nano would bring in is the safety of pedestrians. When we have more cars per stretch of road, there’ll be new stricter road traffic rules to reduce congestion & commotion. A hefty capital punishment along with a few weeks of imprisonment would be levied for skipping a signal, for rash driving, for changing lanes in a haphazard way & so on. Our infrastructure cannot scale to the growth of vehicular traffic, so the birth of such rules is inevitable. But it wouldn’t be very natural, there’ll be several incidents & accidents that would pay way for such rules. This would bring in orderly behaviour of drivers & also the pedestrains would be using their footpaths as there’ll be no space on the roads for them to walk. Vehicular traffic will in no way abuse pedestrians.

Other changes would be in related businesses, more & more Drive-in food outlets would open, converting Nanos into Hybrids, making it to run on alternate fuels such as ethanol or making it into a complete electric vehicle. As many people would gonna own a Nano, there’ll be immense pressure for differentiation, businesses in stickering & adding extra accessories would flourish. Private car parking areas would be ubiquitous in cities. Fuel filling stations & motels would sprang throughout the country.

For Tata Motors, Nano is a case of Corporate Social Responsibility where a slew of objectives, direct as well as indirect, will be met. Kudos.

Bill Gates’ last day at Microsoft, as shown at his final keynote address at CES:

I wonder how guys of such stature be so hilarious.

Gates connection: When in college, I was called “AlGates”. I guess, its “Gates” as in “Bill Gates”. :)