Indexes for Personal Life

Indexes like the Stock Market and Wholesale Price/Consumer Price are critical to a man's well-being. But why stop there? I have developed the following indexes (patents pending) for helping measuring your own well-being. No, it's Ok. You don't have to thank me.

Health Index: Inverse of the No. of antibiotics you popped in the last six months, plus inverse of the no. of doc visits in the last six months

Relationships Index: No. of ships of various kinds that you are into, minus those that you are out of

Relative-control Index: (No. of relatives in close proximity with micro-level hyper control syndrome) to the power of 'N', where N is the no. of such relatives

Happiness Index: Average No. of  likes on your last five facebook statuses and/or cover photos, added to the blog viewership of your last ten blog posts, minus no. of real meetings with your friends.

Unhappiness Index: No. of scheming mothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, shouting news anchors, experts on TV debates, repairmen of any kind that you encountered in the last 24 hours, all added together. Add 20 points to this if you watched Himesh Reshamiya on the small screen.

Kejriwal Index- Closely related to the above. Number of times you watched Kejriwal's antics on TV. This is independently capable of causing Unhappiness or Mirth depending on how you look at it.

Thoughts On Exit Polls and Results

Exit polls, one would expect, are a little bit easier than opinion polls. The only question you ask is "Whom did you vote for?" and you expect one answer, the name of a party. You then add up the numbers. So what can go wrong?

Plenty, it seems, because the last few times, the margin of error has been fairly big. For one, it all depends on the sampling method, and representativeness of the sample. With experts doing the sampling, usually they do try and do it right.

Even if you get the percentage of votes right, sometimes it is tricky to predict who will win the seat. Indian contests usually involve at least three to four contenders (serious ones). The votes get divided, and the winner (almost) never gets 50% of the vote. Therefore, if one party is at 31% and another at 29%, it's hard to predict (given unavoidable errors) who will actually win the seat. This can happen over many seats that are closely fought.

But if there is a massive swing against a ruling party or FOR a new party, it is probably easier to catch that in the air, apart from the poll data. Like many expect this time around.

Interesting to see what happens on the 16th. Swing, wave, et.al.- yes, or no?

Games I Played

The swing, see-saw, and slide, not in that order, in childhood.

Marbles, without losing mine. Jhaad bandar, if you know what I mean.

Top, the spinning type bought in the village market. You had to string it. Skill involved in making it fly into your hand without touching the ground. Secondary skill was in picking it up from the ground on to your palm, still spinning. Also had a 'tick tock' noise-maker from the village fairs. And boats that run with balloon power.

Ice pais or its variants. Gilli-danda, though not too often.

Seven stones piled on each other, hit with a ball. Forget its name.

Hopscotch.

Table tennis. Badminton.

Cricket, volleyball, hockey. At school in Hyderabad.

Tennis, at Clemson, on seeing empty hard courts staring at us.

Golf, at Harihar, on seeing an 18-hole golf course around 500 metres from our house in the Kirloskar colony. Still do, when I can.

PJ Hunting

Good PJs are virulent. They spread like a virus, I mean. They keep circulating in the virtual world, through mail, facebook, whatsapp, and what-have-you. They are an easy way to make people happy, though some will pretend to throw rotten tomatoes or make faces using various apps/emoticons.

Therefore, the hunt for good PJs is a worthwhile hunt. I saw a couple of good ones, but they are about Alia Bhatt. Since I don't want to go after the poor girl, I'll give them short shrift and try out some harmless (to her at least), original  ones-

Does appearing for a viva make you 'vivacious'?

Eating something in Delhi automatically makes it Delhicious.

How do you know whether your mali (gardener) is malicious?

Does lack of harmony do more harm than lack of mon(e)y? Refer to Cacophonix.

What happens when Yingluck is out of luck? Bang, she loses the throne under her Thai.

An old one from the archives- Good breakfasts are born, not bre(a)d.

Now some riddles/questions, to break the monotony (Mona, tum Tony ke saath mat sona. varna Monatony ho jaegi, to quote an Ajit joke).

1. How would 'Bat'man face a googly? (I don't have the answer) 
2. Why do cricket commentators and players use the word 'absolutely' without any reason? 
3. Who is the 'ullu' (owl) common to all the Idea ads about Ullu banaoing? This is an easy (level 1) riddle.

In Defense of Sycophancy

People keep ranting about sycophants and the art they practice. But I don't get it. Like the monarchs of all they survey, sycophants have an important role to play. Who else can do the following things as effectively?

1. Reinforce the self-esteem of the sycophantee (the recipient of the sycophancy- my contribution to the lexicon).

2. Carry tales from rivals and perceived rivals to him. MIS and communication systems rolled into one.

3. Tell humble subjects/subordinates/favour-seekers about his mood swings, and when they should approach him for a favourable outcome.

4. Keep undesirable people away, and let his reign be peaceful, undisturbed by potential bad news.

5. Twist all the news in such a way that it appears that the sycophantee is a gift from God to his subjects/subordinates.

Think of your workplace, and all the (p)syc(h)ophants there. What would the boss do without them?

Mumbai Meet

A few years ago, when I joined IMT Nagpur, we started holding a series of alumni meets across five cities, culminating with a sixth at the campus. We figured that the best time for these was in May/June, because students of first year were available to coordinate the events while doing their summer internships. Four to five faculty would also attend, to establish a connect with alumni, having taught them. This idea took off like nothing I have seen before. Some senior executives are also special invitees, but there are no formal speeches-only informal socialising. Our placement reps are also there, to get in touch with older alums.

Last night I found myself enjoying the Mumbai meet, this time as an alumnus faculty. There were many faces that were familiar, but I had to ask names from a few because though I see them on facebook, it is tough to put a name to a face immediately. Particularly as I have around 1500 ex-IMTians on my friend list- a staggering (but pleasant) number. Combined with weakening memory cells or RAM.

Still, some names I did recall, including Saksham, Kanika, Geetanjali, Aditya, Pavan, Neha Jha, Sheetal Garg, Aakancha, Mohnish, Shivangi, Chaitra who was an organiser last year; others introduced themselves, and the penny dropped. Like Swati, Abhijeet, Aadi, Meha, Tanvi, and many more. I think we lost a few attendees to 'shadi ke side effects' (Ishita, Anurag, Vaishali, Meghana Joshi).Surprising was a visit from Nikita who dropped in from Delhi, just to be there. There was some singing, lots of jokes and leg-pulling, some serious conversation about various facets of IMT Nagpur and IIM Indore (I told everyone that students of both were equally bright, and I believe that), and the IPL match that was on next door. We also had an interview with Concept PR, IMT's agency of choice, who covered the event with pics and videos.

It is great to see an idea implemented years ago thriving and giving so much joy to so many.

Book Review- The Missing Ink by Philip Hensher

The reason why I picked up this book is because I liked the idea of someone writing about writing by hand, using ink. Which it does, mostly engagingly, though there are a couple of chapters that seemed long, and so it took longer than normal for me to finish it. It does get into pens and quills too,and how the italics and other variants of typefaces came about, with anecdotes about 'societies' and other hardcore admirers of each.

But I have a couple of passages about analysing people's handwriting from a chapter called 'Reading Your Mind' that I found hilarious, and that I will quote-

People who don't close up their lower-case g's are very bad at keeping secrets.

People whose writing doesn't have much in the way of ascenders or descenders- stubby f's and y's which just gesture downwards deadly- don't have much of a sex life.

Anyone who writes a circle or a heart over their i's is a moron.

If you ever come across anyone who signs their name and then runs a line through it, run a
mile. Years of therapy await (him/her).

If the crossbar of the t doesn't touch the vertical part, he is an impatient person. Hire them. They get stuff done.

People who underline their signature are convinced of their significance in the world.

I like the last one, coz I do. Underline, I mean.