Pertinent Observations

I don't understand why most temples ban photography inside the premises. I mean there are so many strong things that are there inside temples that are "capture-able" that it's almost criminal that photography is banned. My mom says the ban is so that unscrupulous elements don't take pictures and then distort them. If this is the reason, then I think it's better to allow these unscrupulous elements to collect bad karma by distorting images. Anyways.

One signboard inside the Horanadu temple said (ok i'm translating here) - "parents are requested to ensure that their children don't pee inside the temple". Unfortunately, by the time I saw this notice, I'd already seen one other that said photography is banned inside the temple. However, I don't think the temple had done a good job of putting up this signboard in all appropriate places. Before I'd seen one such signboard, I'd already shot a small video of the mangalarathi. It isn't too clear but then I shot it in a "no video" area so ...


Anyway the point of the photography ban has to do more with the Kalaseshwara temple in Kalasa (some 10 km from Horanadu). There, I noticed an unusual thing - a face had been painted on the lingam. I mean, I thought the purpose of the lingam was because Lord Shiva has to be worshipped in the phallic form. Now, when someone goes and draws a head on it, I don't really know what to say.

The thing is this isn't an isolated occurrence. I saw in Sringeri, too, in a couple of places, where a face had been painted on the lingam. I seriously don't know what the painter was thinking. Or was it a conscious effort by the uber-moral Sringeri mutt to de-sex the lingam?

Now that this half-blasphemous title is out of the way, let me get straight to the point. Actually I think a bit of beating around the bush is warranted. When I read Tyler Cowen's Discover Your Inner Economist, I wasn't sure if i would be quoting part of this book on my blog. However, considering that I almost directly applied one of the ideas mentioned in the book, I think it deserves a mention.

The chapter in question talks about art galleries. Tyler tries to explain one method by which you could make that trip more interesting. "Just imagine", he says, "that you are a thief and want to steal one of these paintings. You know you can take just one of them. Which of these do you want to steal?" He believes that thinking this way will allow you to enjoy the gallery much better.

One of the main features in Sringeri is the stone-carved Vidya Shankara temple. There are elaborate sculptures on the outside, most of them representing events from mythology. The last time I visited (16 years back) there was our tour guide who had put detailed explanation of most of these sculptures. Now, yesterday, there was no guide around. And none of my relatives were willing to accompany me around this temple putting fundaes. So I was left with the job of going round the temple for myself figuring out the various sculptures. Question was how I was going to motivate myself to go all round it.

I think I was better equipped than the average wannabe thief at a gallery. The beauty with stone carvings from the Middle Ages is that there is a lot of subliminal stuff. The artist would've somehow slipped in (with or without the knowledge of the guy commissioning him) a few "interesting postures" into his work. For sake of random "decency" most guides tend to leave it out. But you know that there is bound to be some interesting stuff. My mandate for last evening was simple - go around this temple looking for porn on the walls. And in the process capture on camera whatever I find interesting.

I must thank Tyler for giving me this kind of an idea. I didn't really believe that it would work when I'd read the book. But work like a charm it did, yesterday. That half hour was one of the best half hours of that trip. Unfortunately, the guy who commissioned the temple seems to have been extra careful and not much has slipped in. I thought I found a little bit of "stuff". Maybe I was biased in my thinking due to my "agenda" but I think I found a couple of instances of animal sex (animals having sex with other animals), an Amazon-like figure (which I think may turn out to be some Ardhanarishwar or something) and some figurines of women doing yoga which looked very suspicious.

Right now some NED is happening so I'll  upload some images tomorrow. You can judge for yourself as to whether I was unduly biased or if the artist did manage to slip in some stuff.

I'm off on a pilgrimage tonight. My mom, for a long time wanted to visit Horanadu and Sringeri and for some reason she's had to keep postponing it. Finally, taking advantage of my joblessness we are going tonight, along with two of my mom's cousins.

We'll be back on Saturday morning so till then my blog will be on  break (ok I haven't been too regular of late so the break might not mean much). It'll also mean that I'll be off email and GTalk and BRacket and all that.

Nevertheless, I hope to be twittering continuously. I got my twitter to work (the helpdesk got back to me saying that the india short code is facing some problems nowadays so I should use the international thing). This is my twitter page: http://twitter.com/karthiks
And this is the RSS feed: http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/14645914.rss

Around this time last year, I was doing a series of blog posts on delivery and revenue management practices in restaurants in Bangalore. My apologies for not updating on that series for so long.

This morning I had my breakfast at SLV in Banashankari 2nd stage (near the BDA complex; opposite the park next to the complex). Despite being within 200 metres of my school, I don't particularly remember going here too often. This is one of the very old-school darshinis - for a long time, these guys made no dosas. Even the last time I went there (about a year back), they served only idli, vada, kesari bhath and khara bhath. Today, however, I noticed that they were also making masala dosa.

Making dosa represents major progress in the "development" of a self-service eatery, since the space required for the equipment to make it is huge. Apart from this, the more important point is the nature of the dosa business. Idli-vada-chowchowbhath are all "made to stock" items. You make them once and store them, and dish them out as and when there is demand.

Dosa, however, is different in the sense that it is not really storable, at least not if you want to maintain quality (ok now this reminds me of electricity but anyway... ). Hence, unless the demand for dosas is huge (like it is in Upahara Darshini), the dosas need to be made to order. Which means that the tawa will not be used to its full capacity, and could become a burden in case kitchens are very small. A large number of really small places get around this problem by just not making dosas

What SLV has done in order to work around this problem is simple, yet fantastic. They have "off shored" all non-core functions. Anything that can be made elsewhere is made elsewhere, and only the last and most important step is done in their small kitchen. So today while I was downing the idlis, I noticed this van which stopped right in front to deliver idli batter, vada batter, cut vegetables, etc. Notice that all these are "store-able" and "transport-able" commodities.

Thinking about it, if you run a large number of such restaurants in a reasonably small area, then economies of scale can be employed with respect to the back-end process, which can help cut further costs. I won't be surprised if this particular SLV has a few branches, or a tie-up with a few other similar restaurants, and shares it's "back office".

To summarize,

• It should be possible to easily split the process of cooking the items into various stages, such that the "work-in-progress" products at the end of each stage can be easily stored and transported
• If this is possible, only the last and critical stages - which cannot be offshored should be done on site (for example, if you try to bring in idli made elsewhere it loses in terms of quality. things like that should be avoided)
• It should be possible for the back end kitchen to deliver just in time the work-in-progress, so that the restaurant doesn't spend much space in terms of just storing the stuff
• The back end should ideally have a large number of clients (anyways most of the "products" they deliver are commodities) so that they can effectively employ economies of scale
• In future, when real estate becomes more expensive, and restaurants (of all hues) will want to increase their "revenue-generating" area, this offshored model could become popular across all genres of restaurants
• This is not a new idea. I believe stores such as McDonalds are already implementing this. However, what SLV has done is to adapt this to the indian food scenario
• The benefits from off-shoring should be more than the costs of stuff like transportation

The only "major item" now that the SLV is not making is sambar. I'll try explain in a follow-up post about the economics of making sambar and why the SLV is yet to bring this in. If you have any ideas regarding this, please leave a comment.

Last evening, my neighbour, who is also the president of the local resident's welfare association, briefly dropped in to hand over my mother's voting chit. And dropped in a line asking us to vote for a particular party. "This guy has done excellent work in his previous term as MLA", he said, "and we'll all benefit if he is gets elected".

So what I learnt from that little conversation is that the president of our RWA is well-acquainted with this particular candidate. Just to give you a bit of a background, the RWA in our area has been fairly active in its 20 odd years of existence. Most people living around here own their houses, which is an important reason for the RWA to be successful. Some things, such as an annual picnic or sports day, have stopped, but the RWA seems to be doing its core job of representing the area pretty well in terms of general "issues".

Now, there is an obvious advantage in supporting the guy whom my RWA is supporting. For example, if there is any issue for which I'll need to reach out to my MLA (ok the probability of this is minimal but still, ... ) I know that the president of my RWA has a rapport with him and so it'll be easier to reach him. Another thing is that given the support of the RWA here, this guy is likely to do good for this particular locality than some other. Yet another reason I might want to vote for my RWA's choice is that this guy's opponent knows that my area hasn't really supported him this election, so he might not really do much for our locality.

We see that there are several reasons why voting for the guy that my RWA supports is going to be good for me. However, is that reason enough to vote for this guy ? What about his party? I'm not sure if this guy's party is going to give me 5 years of stable government and from that perspective would want to vote for his main opponent. What should my main consideration be as a voter? To vote for the MLA who will be best for me or to vote for the guy who will probably give the best government?

I wonder if this kind of an argument is good enough in the presidential vs parliamentary debate. The main problem with the parliamentary system is that you have only one vote that ties together both your choice for local leader as well as the government. So, in case a particular party doesn't do a good job of selecting its candidate, it might stand to lose. Or if someone is part of a party which is "not good enough for him" he tends to lose again. And I still don't know whether to vote on local or global issues.

Coming back, I wonder if my RWA is doing the right thing by taking a stand on this issue. I mean wouldn't it have been better for them to maintain relationship with all major candidates, and thus hedge their bets? Given what they have done now, it seems like if their candidate loses, we as a locality might stand to lose.

And I'm still wondering who to vote for. This is provided my name is on the list.

PS
My post on BJP's Bangalore South candidates has drawn huge response. Most of the replies, interestingly, are regarding the caste of K Chandrashekar, the Congress candidate from Basavanagudi (under which my house falls). So far, there has been claim that he is from all possible major castes in Bangalore other than Lingayat - Brahmin, Vokkaliga, SC and Kuruba (OBC) have all been taken care of. Does anyone know his caste? (not that it will matter in my final decision. just a "good to know" variable)

In a post I wrote a month back, I had talked about Predicatably Irrational Traffic - in which I talked about a bunch of motorists collectively jumping a signal which they deemed unfair.

Now, having read "The Logic of Life" a couple of weeks back, I'm not sure the heading of that was correct. I'm not sure if we were being irrational there in jumping the signal. I think what happened that day can be better classified as, to use the terminology developed by Gary Becker, etc., a "rational crime".

So I joined twitter. Signed up at least. YOu can find my "microblog" at http://twitter.com/karthiks

However, i'm having trouble linking it to my mobile phone (the sole reason I signed up). The thing asks me to SMS a codeword to some 5566511 number. i've sent the SMS but nothing has happened. the number hasn't been registered. no clue why.

has anyone else faced the same problem? if yes, can you help me out?

(i've checked the twitter FAQs. they've given 2 reasons why it won't wrok. i've checked and i havent' made a mistake there)  

I'd gone to Madras yesterday to participate in the annual QFI open quiz. Went with the usual team - kodhi and madman (aadisht). Missed qualification for the finals by one point. The only saving grace was that we didn't miss any obvious question, so we didn't feel that bad for not qualifying. A few pertinent observations from the trip

• I need to start twitter-ing soon. I think it's extremely useful for long lonely train journeys such as yesterday's trip to Madras. There are so many things you want to tell so many people but no quick and easy way of doing it. Also, it doesn't help when it's early in the morning on a weekend.
  
• There was a massive co-ordination problem. sw_aadisht had initially suggested we go for the quiz and later told me that he is unsure that he'll be available. So I assumed we aren't going unless he confirms otherwise and had happily booked for yesterday's IPL game against Hyderabad. Later it turns out that aadisht has booked tickets for himself and thedilettante and he's somehow assumed that I was going too.
  
  After this act of utter incompetence from aadisht, I refuse to believe that he has a bachelor's in Computer Science & Engineering. I'm sure he did nothing at TIT apart from growing his hair and beard
  
• All is well that ends in the well. I managed to procure tatkal tickets by Shatabdi. This forced spending of an extra 150 bucks meant that I decided to cut costs for the return trip and booked by Rajahamsa (the normal luxury bus) rather than the airconditioned Airavata. It turned out to be a good choice, since the guy next to me kept the windows open and there was a cool breeze throughout the night
• I met thedilettante for the first time yesterday. I approached her and said "I suppose you are MadWoman". In hindsight, I should've done a H M Stanley and said "Madwoman, I presume?". She seems much more subdued than what I had thought by looking at her blogs. Or maybe a tiring overnight train journey had ensured that she wasn't in good spirits
• Saravana Bhavan sucks. It was a full half hour after we were seated that they came to take our order. I'd ordered idli as starter but didn't get it until the onion uthappam (my second main course) had arrived. The idlis were hard and stony, and the uthappam too didn't live up to the usual Chennai standards. And they took so long with the bill that I ended up entering the quiz ten minutes too late.
• There doesn't seem to be a cluster of fine-dining restaurants in Chennai, like we almost do on Church Street. There are many excellent restaurants but the problem is that each is 20 rupees by auto away from the other. So if you go to one place and there is no room, there is no option but to take an auto and go elsewhere. Yesterday, we got turned down by Benjarong and Cedar and finally had dinner at Cornucopia. Food was decent, though the portions were small.
  
• The CMBT concept (bus stand outside the city) is excellent and needs to be implemented in Bangalore too. However, unlike Madras, Bangalore isn't in a corner, so we'll need several bus stands. I think one bus stand each at Peenya, Madiwala and Mysore Road will do good in easing pressure on some arterial city roads. And i'm talking about proper full-fledged bus stands which are connected by frequent buses to each other and to Majestic.
• There seems to be a massive improvement in the quality of TN buses since the last time I had been to CMBT (which was in October). They seem to have learnt that luxury buses can be profitable and have introduced a few on important routes such as Bangalore and Trichy. Interestingly, in Karnataka, most overnight buses are of the luxury variety. I wonder what has caused this difference in the standard of buses. The roads maybe?
  
• KSRTC has responded to SETC's luxury buses by moving further up the value chain. When I was living in Madras (2000-04), most overnight buses between Bangalore and Madras were Rajahamsas (normal luxury). Now, it seems like there are only 1/2 rajahamsas every night, with the rest of the capacity being fulfilled by A/C Volvos (Airavatas). And there seems to be enough and more demand to justify this large number of Airavatas too.
  
• When the bus stops at a dhaba in the middle of the night, I usually don't prefer to get down. This morning, however, I got down and after having emptied my bladder, stood around observing. Most people made a beeline from the bus to the loo (the loo charged 1 buck btw) and then went to the dhaba to have tender coconut or tea. I also saw a few whores (ok i classified them based on their attire, mannerisms, etc.) at the dhaba. I was observing one of them. She too did the usual routine of loo->tea though she didn't arrive by any bus. But she didn't look like she took any tea from the tea stall. I was a fair distance away but i think she just either gave money or took money and walked away. Some commissions I thought.
• The no-traffic travel time from K R Puram bridge to Richmond circle is 10 minutes. This distance used to take upwards of an hour in the afternoon/evening (this I'd observed back when I was at Sabre

She is still an out-of-money option - quite ordinary for most of the time, offering nothing, or mildly negative returns; but once in a very long time you get great value, making the long periods of mediocrity worth their while.

Cross posted at the Indian Economy Blog

Today, on the occasion of my father's first year death ceremony, I discarded my janavaara (sacred thread)

Recently, Tyler Cowen wrote in the New York Times saying that lack of free trade in rice and growing protectionism is not a good thing from the long-term perspective.

IAS Officer Gulzar Natarajan (now with the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation) took him on and elaborated as to why protectionism might be necessary.

I left the following comment on Gulzar's blog. Given that I'm not blogging much nowadays, and I almost wrote an essay over there, I reproduce here that comment in full.

"trade" doesn't necessarily mean foreign trade. it can also stand for trade within the country. and this is essential in order to "send out the right signals".

basic thing is that we need to ensure that farmers receive a fair price for the rice they grow. given that the total demand for rice is increasing, it is only fair that the farmer sees this increasing demand by way of higher rice prices. higher rice prices (as realized by hte farmer) will lead to increase in production which can combat the growign demand.

international trade is one thing. the bigger problem lies with the procurement of goods such as rice by the governments. a number of countries don't allow the farmer to sell to the open market. procurement is highly controlled, and despite the rising prices, the farmer gets none of it. and thus has no incentive to grow more.

yes, a country might ban exports because it feels that the rice available is enough only to feed its own population. however, this shouldn't be done at the farmers' cost. and they should be able to see the right demand for the commodity so that they can adjust.

The "first" Bangalore Photowalk happened this morning. Eleven people turned up (including me). Thanks to Aadisht, Prabhu, Hari, Suvrat, Rajagopal, Baada, Tharunya, Priya, Madhavi and Nikshep for helping out in making this a grand success.

As planned, we met in front of the Apsara Theater at 8 am. I had mentioned in yesterday's email that I'd be wearing a black T-shirt. Maybe people thought it was a dress code, as some half a dozen others turned up in black T-shirts. We started off at a statue of Dr. B R Ambedkar in front of the Apsara Theatre and moved on to the Bangalore fort, where we spent a considerable amount of time. We then walked along K R Road, taking photographs of Vani Vilas Hospital, the Theosophical society and several snaps of the basket weavers in front of BIT.

I'm proud of my timing - the route that I had selected seemed to be of the appropriate length and we finished up at National College circle at the appointed time of 10 am. We then proceeded to the nearby SLV for breakfast.

I have taken a total of 180 photos during the walk. I've uploaded a few samples. I request the others who attended also to upload their photos to flickr, and tag the photos as "bangalorephotowalk". You can find the photos that I've uploaded here. And here is a sample picture (Disclaimer: I'm not responsible for the words on this signboard. This signboard exists somewhere near K R Market. I just happened to photograph it)

I know i'm a bit late on this but I've been incredibly busy all day so wasn't able to post this earlier. The Bangalore Photo Walk kicks off tomorrow morning at 8 am. We meet in front of Apsara theatre (between the theatre and the subway mouth) and then proceed down K R Road.

I request you to be there on time. I hope to commence the walk at 8 am sharp.

I hope to be there by around 7:45 - 7:50. Just to help you guys identify me, I'll be wearing a black T-shirt and black cap.

Looking forward to meeting you people tomorrow. And I need to go charge my camera batteries.

PS: mail me at skthewimp AT yahoo DOT com and i'll mail you back my phone number. Once again, apologies for sending this mail so late.  

Some pertinent observations from yesterday's game between Mohali and Mumbai

• The new Mohali outfit (supposedly designed by Provogue) is a rip-off of the Chennai SuperStars outfit. That garish pink and grey. Though, one must admit that the new outfit did help turn luck Mohali's way. And it's definitely much better than the old one
• They got their team also almost right. They rightly dispensed with the bits-and-pieces hopes and brought in three specialist foreign batsmen. The only guy i didn't really know in the line-up was Sunny Sohal. Haven't seen too much of him on domestic cricket scoresheets.
• Bringing in VRV for Mota was another positive move. Yeah, VRV got taken to the cleaners in one over by Pollock and Tiwary. But he has performed well in domestic cricket this season, and also has good pace. One of the few fast bowlers to do well in Ranji this year (most of the others were just a bit quicker than dibbly dobbly)
• I was multitasking with The Long Tail while watching the post-match proceedings. One moment, they show Preity Zinta hugging Brett Lee. The next moment, they show Sreesanth crying. Having heard about Sreesanth's geelapan, I was wondering if the two incidents had anything to do with each other. Now it turns out that Harbhajan punched Sreesanth.
  
• Thanks to Harbhajan's punch, Mumbai might go down below Punjab in the fair play rankings. Again, it's a Punjoo who has been responsible for it.
  
• Mumbai is slowly getting their team right. Tiwary for Yeligati was a positive move. The only thing left now is to get rid of that Brave Rat (isn't that what "Musa vir" translates to?) Khote and replace him with another batsman. Tendulkar if he is fit, or Rahane. If they want an all-rounder, they could try Gaurav Dhiman, who had opened the bowling along with RP Singh during the U-19 World Cup in 2004
• This has nothing to do with this particular game, but the boundary lines need to be pushed back. Things are way too much loaded in favour of batsmen now.

I was just going through the program list of the classical music season at the Fort High School grounds. What strikes me is that whenever two siblings in the same family are good at this kind of stuff, they pair up and advertise themselves after their town or something.

I don't know who was the first pairing that started this, but now artistes naming themselves in this way has become way too popular. It almost seems like if one person in the family is good at carnatic music, he/she forces his/her sibling to take it up too - so that they can become a duet and give themselves a cool name.

The interesting thing is it's always "X Brothers" or "Y sisters". It's never a brother-sister combination. Maybe "Velachery siblings" doesn't sound that good. Other relationships, too, are taboo. There may be say a couple who always perform together, or a father-son pair who are usually a team, but they don't usually advertise themselves as a team, and prefer to go by their individual names instead. Maybe the lack of elegant names (such as "brothers") prevents them from doing so.

This trend of brothers and sisters is catchign on so much that soon you'll have people deciding to become each other's Rakhi brothers or Rakhi sisters or rakhi brother of a rakhi sister so that they could give themselves names such as this. Maybe the quest for interesting names might even bring in the band culture to Carnatic music (on a more serious note, one of the thrills of Carnatic music is watching people who've never met before getting together and creating music). Interesting times lie ahead.

Anyways here is a list of all the siblings that I found on the program list:

• MALLADI BROTHERS
• MYSORE NAGARAJ & DR. MYSORE MANJUNATH (sometimes they call themselves Mysore Brothers)
• HYDERABAD BROTHERS
• MAMBALAM SISTERS
• PRIYA SISTERS

Ok. There aren't too many. But we are getting to a stage where the whole program sheet will be filled with names like this.

On another note, certain entries in the list read something like "WOWCTB and party". This kind of nomenclature is extremely unfair to the "accompanists" (which is again a derogatory term). The violin and the percussion are as much a part of the concert as what is known as the "main instrument". Just pick any singer. Any singer. And imagine him/her singing alone without any instruments.You get it right?

Not only have they not won any games so far, the IPL team from Punjab lie at the bottom of the heap when it comes to the fair play rankings too.
Another case of cricket imitating life.

Mumbai Indians I mean. Their team selection so far has been inexplicable, and their tactics while bowling even more so.

1. What can you say about a batting line up where the absolute bunny Ashish Nehra (the only runs i've seen him score was the four to win against New Zealand in New Zealand in 2003. That game where Sehwag scored century and rest buckled chasing 199) bats at 9?

2. I've been regularly following first class cricket in India for some 2-3 seasons now. At least, I follow the ranji trophy super league, Duleep trophy and deodhar trophy. Who the hell are Musavir Khote, Dhawal Kulkarni and Vikrant Yeligati? What the hell are they doing in the Mumbai team?

It seems like there is some instruction either from Sharad Pawar or from the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena to include a certain number of sons of the soil in the team. Even then, there are sons of the Mumbai soil who deserve to play much more than these jokers. People like Ajinkya Rahane were on the bench while these jokers played.

3. Bhajji's captaincy was shocking to say the least. He bowls just two overs. Pollock bowls one over short of his quota. And you have people like Khote and Yeligati bowling and gettign smashed to all corners. Clearly, there seems to be some directive to make these guys bowl also.

4. The best thing I can think of is that this whole thing is an elaborate ploy by the team to show that playing just a few stars along with a large number of useless people can do the trick in T20. Yes, Sachin or Jayasuriya might singlehandedly win the odd match for them. But then there are 12 overs to be bowled outside of Pollock and Bhajji. And this is assuming they complete their quota - which may not be guaranteed.

Just so that this doesn't become a Mumbai Indians bashing post, I'll also add that it's a disgrace to the IPL that Rajasthan Royals are playing a guy who won a reality show (Salunkhe). I always knew that team was a bit of a joke but this is too much even by their standards. And I read that ticket prices have had to be slashed by a large amount in Jaipur because no one is turning up. I told you Jaipur doesn't have a cricket culture.

The first Bangalore Photo Walk (ok the first that I'm doing, I don't know if any others exist) will be from one of Bangalore's most popular flyovers to one of Bangalore's least popular flyovers. As mentioned earlier, it is going to happen on Sunday, the 27th of April 2008. Since this is the first walk that is going to happen, I'm not sure about the speed in which we will walk. Hence, I've chosen (what I think is) a short route.

We meet in front of Apsara Theater in K R Market at 8 am sharp. We start at the walls of the Bangalore Fort which is nearby, and then move on to photographing the hospitals - Victoria and Vani Vilas. Then, we continue to move south on K R Road. We go past the Kote Venkataramanaswamy Temple, followed by two places which have been key in the promotion of Classical Music in Bangalore - the Fort High School grounds (ok - there isn't much photogenic stuff here) and the Gayana Samaja. During the course of the walk, we also pass by a few old colleges (Bangalore Medical College, Vani Vilas College, etc.) which some people might find photo-worthy.

After we are past the Bangalore Institute of Technology, we take a little detour just to visit V V Puram. We look at (and photograph) the Subramanya Swamy temple and the Sajjan Rao circle and then turn back towards K R Road through the Jain College road.

The walk will officially end under the flyover at the National College circle. Tentatively, i expect us to end at around 10 am, but since this is the first walk, the variance of time taken is high. In case we reach too early, and people still have energy, we can continue the walk down K R Road (there are a number of old houses on this stretch which might be good for photography) and maybe end at the Nettakallappa circle.

The initial plan was that at the end of the walk, those of us who were still interested could walk to the Vidyarthi Bhavan (which is situated close to where the walk ends) and have a round of Masala Dosas. Unfortunately, the restaurant has currently shut down for renovation. Hence, this won't be part of the plan. If someone has any other good suggestion for breakfast, let me know.

That said, it'll be around 10 am by the time we finish. And it's going to be a long and tiring walk. Hence, I request you to have had one round of breakfast before we embark. Also, you might want to bring some water bottles with you. And a camera of course - though you are welcome even if you just want to walk along and aren't interested in taking photos.

The response to my first post on this seemed decent, and there were a few comments on Aadisht's post about this also. If you are still interested and haven't let either of us know, just drop in a comment. Even if you decide at the last minute that you want to join, you are welcome.

I have made a rough map of the route that we are going to take.

View Larger Map

The concept of a photo-walk was probably started by chandrachoodanin Madras some six months ago (the credit for this idea, he says, should go to Monica). Since then, it has become a monthly feature, and of late, has started attracting participants from outside of madras also (such as sw_aadisht).

I don't know if such a thing is being done in Bangalore. I know that there is a group of photographers who meet up every weekend and take photos at markets. This seems like a completely photography-oriented endeavour. There is also a Bangalore Walks, where for four hours on a weekend morning, if you pay four hundred rupees, you are taken around a fixed walking tour of Bangalore (two of the tours are in the M G Road area, and one in Lalbagh). There are also several "birding expeditions", as I learn from deponti's blog.  Then, there is Arun and a couple of his friends who walked around Lalbagh and a couple of other areas for a few weekends and called their photo sets as "bangalore photo walk".

Since my survey (able aided by chandroo and aadisht) doesn't reveal any photo walk (in the way that chandru does it in madras), I propose to fill the gap in this market. I propose to have the first photo walk on Sunday, the 27th of April at 8 am. The tentative route is between K R Market and Gandhi Bazaar, along the K R Road (we will start from the end of KR Road, and just keep walking. I get the impression that the market itself has been covered by sufficient number of groups so let's leave that for now). I will confirm and put more details about this route in a day or two.

Just to refresh you people about the concept, it's just "photo" and "walk". We meet at a point (say point A) and walk from there to point B along a pre-specified route, taking photos as we go along. And then we disperse. And maybe meet again in a month's time at a different point.

Now, there is one important difference between Madras and here. Chandroo has decent fundaes both about Madras and photography. I think I'm fairly competent when it comes to knowledge about Bangalore but I don't know much about photography. I use a simple Kodak aim-and-shoot digicam, and generally churn out not-so-good snaps (you can see some of my snaps here). I have a special interest in photographing unusual signboards. Coming back to the point, I would hope to draw upon the experiences of more experienced photographers who might choose to walk with me in order to improve my own skills.

Why am I doing this? It's been a long-standing aim to just walk around the streets of Bangalore and randomly take photos. So far, I've been too lazy to do it. Basically, NED has been happening. Now, if i set a time and place, and also promise several other people that I will be there, it will be that much more difficult to put NED. And I'll get down to doing the task.

Oh, and by the way, this thing is going to be free. The only thing I'm going to ask for is your time. And hopefully, in this time, I can share with you some of my fundaes about Bangalore, which might prove to be useful. Also, this opportunity of going out as a group and taking pics might draw you out of your NED.

I shamelessly admit to being a copycat. However, i think it's a good thing to copy good things. Let me know if you're interested by leaving a comment. I'll be back soon with the route details etc.

A couple of requests. Please leave a comment here if you want to attend. Not that I'll cancel the walk if not enough people respond, but it would feel good to know how many people are interested.

Also, if you like this idea, I request you to give more publicity for it. Maybe post a link to this on your blog. Or if you blog at one of the more popular blogs (such as metblogs), you could put a link there. Thanks in advance.

I'm writing this in the innings break of the first IPL game between bangalore and calcutta. I've just witnessed what might have been one of the finest innings in limited overs cricket. Absolutely mindblowing stuff from McCullum. Yet, if at all I'm feeling something, it's irritation. Despite having watched such good cricket from this man, I feel quite incomplete. There's something definitely missing.

The problem is that there has been absolutely no contest. Apart from Praveen Kumar's first over, and Zaheer's over where he got Dada, there has been nothing in this for the bowlers. They have come, bowled, and got whacked. The ground seems to have shrunk. The outfield has never been quicker. Miscued flicks are going over third man for six.

And then there is the telecast by SET Max. They seem to have lived up to the high standards they set for themselves during the previous World Cup. Not content with showing almost five-ball overs, they have decided there is too much time between balls also. The screen gets smaller and a loud ad gets played. Yes, I know that they have paid too much for their telecast rights and are trying to recover it, but they should also know that if they end up irritating the viewers like this, TRPs are going to dip. And then, in the pre-match show, where you would've expected some kind of half-intellectual discussion about teams and strategies and stuff, you had Ajay Jadeja and Rameez Raja blabbering about stuff they knew little about. It was good that they decided to interview Dr. Mallya and didn't subject us to more of their idiocy.

Before the tournament started, I had decided to support my home team the Bangalore Royal Challengers. I still do. However, there's no sense of loyalty. Maybe it'll take time to get used to it, but apart from the city they supposedly represent I don't see anything that might want me to support them. And no, I don't think it has to do with the mauling they've suffered at McCullum's hands. I would've felt the same even if they had knocked out calcutta for 40 all out. At this point of time, I can confidently say that I feel more loyalty for the Karnataka Ranji team; for Liverpool FC; for Aston Villa; and heck, even for Villareal. I feel more loyal to all the above mentioned teams than I do for the Royal Challengers.

However, all is not lost. If you remember, the ICC World T20 had started off as a similar slogfest. Gayle's century had taken the West Indies to 212 which was chased down by South Africa to plenty to spare. And then the next day, things started happening. Things started happening when Zimabwe restricted Australia to 140. They started happening when India managed to tie the game with Pakistan (bowl out doesn't count) defending just 141. Things happened when some things went the bowlers' way. When there was an even contest between bat and ball.

Hopefully this match is an anomaly. Hopefully we will get better pitches for the rest of the games. Where there would be an even contest between bat and ball. However, god forbid, if the intention is to draw in the non-cricketing crowds by producing slogfests, then I'll be back watching when India tours Bangladesh for an ODI triangular in June.

Ok. Nothing unusual about the title of this post. There is intuitively a lot of randomness where the met department is concerned. This post is about an editorial in the Business Standard.

Now, the Indian Met department used a new process for forecasting the monsoons last year. Now, this process yielded good results in the north-east and north-west in terms of forecast accuracy. In the center and south, however, it was a disaster. The process had predicted a small shortfall in rain in these two regions, and it turned out the rains here were more than a quarter more than normal!

So what does the met do now? They decide to discard the process for the center and south. And will continue to use it for the north-west and north-east. Even if you know a little bit about randomness and testing, and I assume that the people at the met department should definitely be well-versed in this, you will know that they have done is ridiculous. How can you form an opinion about something by looking at just one data point? Wouldn't there have been a good chance that this an anomalous result? Now, what will the met do if the method fails for the north-east and north-west also? Will they completely abandon this new method?

I find the system that the met department is using no more intelligent than the one that I use to classify my shirts as "lucky" or "unlucky" (and trust me that isn't very intelligent; I just use 1/2 data points and quickly derive an opinion).

God help us, if the met department is like this. The sooner weather derivatives (rainfall, temperature, etc.) get launched (or have they already been launched? I know they are now legal in india) the better for us. At least in that case we will get the wisdom of crowds to forecast the monsoon.

Earlier today, I had written that bosses are unlikely to trust employees who they think have the option of easily quitting their jobs. I had made the point back then that you shouldn't take a job for which you are over-qualified.

Thinking about it, it strikes me that if you are versatile, you face a similar kind of problem. Suppose you have the necessary skill sets to do say four different kinds of jobs, and are doing one, irrespective of where you go, your boss will think there is a good chance you might take flight to one of the other jobs. Now, if the potential bosses think like this during the interview itself, there is a good chance that none of them is willing to hire you!

From the point of view of long-term stability, what most bosses are looking for is for focussed and committed employees. And unless your "skills vector" points broadly in the same direction of the required skills for the job, the cross product will be big enough to cause concerns over stability in the mind of the interviewer.

One option, of course, is to focus on one particular direction and forget your other skills, so that the component of your skills vector in this particular direction will dwarf the components in other directions, thus reducing the cross product when compared to the job profile skills vector. But what do you do if, at a particular point of time in your career, you are a jack-of-several-trades - like I am at this point of time? You need to be able to do something now before you are able to improve in a component.

You might appreciate the following analogy if you understand contract bridge. What do you do with a hand where in each of the four suits, both you and your partner are reasonably strong, while there is no single strong suit? You need to choose a trump, and may end up choosing the longest of suits. But due to this choice, you may not be able to use your high cards in the other suits to the fullest extent.

Bridge offers a way out for this, by allowing you to bid for a no trump contract. The challenge here is to find the equivalent of a no trump contract in the job market.

Speaking to Baada about this, we somehow thought this too might fit in with the seminal studs and fighters framework. It is likely (not guaranteed, but likely) that a stud boss may just look at the magnitude of the skills vector and the unique direction it points to and say "OK if i train this guy in my direction, i'm sure he'll grow quickly along that and will be useful to me". My little experience says that fighters are more likely to look for "proven track record in chosen field" and "focus" and would thus not be too appreciative of a big cross product.

In an op-ed in yesterday's Business Standard, Deepak Lal writes

Hume believed that all ideas are based either on logic or sense experience, and that our inductive inferences based on constant conjunction of particular temporal sequences do not give us secure grounds from observing instances to inferring a general rule.

Totally haemoglobin-in-the-atmosphere level stuff. I mean, it may be ok (or even necessary) to use such complicated and unreadable language in an academic journal. But in an op-ed of a newspaper? Even if it is a business newspaper whose readers are more informed in general?

I think there is a conspiracy by academics to prevent "normal people" from understanding concepts that are simple and intuitive.

From The Logic of Life - "your option to escape means you cannot be relied upon".

Harford makes this point while he is talking about "acting white". That black kids who work hard at acads are discouraged by family and peers because they are now getting an option to exit the misery. It's the old story of the crabs in the jar. That nothing will escape despite the lid being open.

From a job perspective, this factor might not help people who are seen as being over-qualified for their job. The boss won't trust them. The boss knows it's easier for these guys to move out when they want to. So unless they manage to project an extremely strong degree of commitment, it would be difficult for the boss to invest in them.

And two years back, when I left A T Kearney, I had thought I should get into something where I'm overqualified thinking it might help me be seen in a better relative light and thus grow...