What happens in Vegas....

......can happen in Macau also?

Macau?

My first instinct was 'uh....er.....heard of it...somewhere'. My my inner voice said that such a place could exist, atleast it was phonetically possible. If a place called Alappuzha(no offense chetas, but in your defense, when people can have names like Jibin, Mobin, Cibin or Dijo then it's not weird to have places called Alappuzha) can exist, then a Macau most certainly can.

I was obviously surprised to read that this Macau place was going to give Las Vegas, yes Las Vegas, a run for its money. When did you hear something like that? Giving Las Vegas a run for its money?

Apparently that is the case.


As NYT reports, the Venetian Macao Resort, opening today is bigger and shinier than anything in Vegas.

Note the typical use of the American metric system, which provisons for every damn thing in the world to be measured in ESB or MSG - that's Empire State Building units or Madison Square Garden units(it can be fun. Like when you say India's nominal GDP is 1/200 th of the capacity of MSG, they guy behind the 3 inch thick glass will stamp your H1-B with a 'You Betcha!' smile).

And it's not the only one. Wynn is already there and MGM wants to set up shop in due time. But the biggest surprise was when, after reading only the first two paragraphs of the NYT report, I googled for Macau and got this:



Macau is in...ahem.......er, CHINA, uh-o.


So Red China and Imperial America are fighting over Vegas now. Isn't that funny? China seems to be etching closer to its new-age creed - 'Bourgeoisie of the world, unite- here in China'.

Anyways, I am not that optimistic about this Macau thing. See, Vegas, like most things that are uniquely American, for example, NY or Hollywood or Vietnam or Iraq, is something that cannot be duplicated elsewhere, sometimes even by Americans themselves. It's simply not about building a city. It's also about the people and the culture. Which is quite hard to create.

Take for instance, the dollar weilding American. Few in the world, except Vijay Mallya of course, can be as cavalier as the man from the free world. As the article says:

.......But Macao’s average gambler is still a day-tripper from Hong Kong or nearby Chinese cities in the Pearl River delta. These visitors are so frugal that they often bring their own food and do not rent hotel rooms. They spend an average of just 1.26 days in the territory — and even that average is inflated by the many Hong Kong residents who work in Macao Monday through Friday and go home on weekends.

By contrast, the average visitor to Las Vegas spends 3.4 days.

Bring their own food! Oriental gambling ishtyle! HOLY!

As for the culture, one may question what culture can Vegas claim to represent. Fair enough. It's called the Sin City. Gambling Town. But hey, that is what Vegas was built to offer. An escape. And it's amazing how the people who live in and around that town, with the same moral and ethical values as you and me, have come together to keep the city true to its spirit. Vegas is Vegas because it's in the middle of the United States of Freaking America. Anywhere else in the world, it would have been a ghost town in the middle of a desert.

Why? See below:

“........If you look at Macao, there are no or virtually no nongaming revenues,” whereas nongambling revenues exceed gambling revenues in Las Vegas, said William P. Weidner, the president and chief operating officer of Las Vegas Sands.

Non-gaming revenues. Hmm. See the picture? Get the picture?

Macau. Do you copy that?

Seasons Greetings!

Pictures from the Varmahalakshmi celebrations at home. For the unacquainted, the celebrations are to honour Goddess Lakshmi (Aunt Scrooge) and thank her for all her ble$$ing$, and to genlty point out that any FDI* in the household financial sector is most welcome.

This week also brings Rakshabandhan and Onam. Seasons greetings to both Aryans and Dravidians!

* Future Divine Intervention

Love and Peace

Hope our brothers and sisters in Hyderabad will find the strength to overcome this tragedy. India stands firm behind them.

Media : Please show some respect to the departed by NOT beaming pictures of their bloodied mortal remains over and over. This is not a photo-op. Getting it on tape is not journalism. Sometimes a thousand words are better than a picture.

Politicians : Don't BS us. Innocent people have died. Show how you care. Shut up. Stand up. Be counted.

Cops : Get them. No matter what.

People : Bad things happen to good people. It is both wrong and sad when it happens. Let's NOT move on. Let's not forget. Let's embrace the grief. Let's look within. Remember, we are all on the same side.

Love and Peace

One reason I miss America..

is

Jon Stewart.

Hope is a good thing

There are no words to introduce this story. Ty Ziegel and Renee Kline personify the spirit of human endurance.

A Marine Wedding
Photo Courtesy: Nina Berman


The photograph can trigger may reactions. Sympathy, Compassion , Melancholy, Anger, Inceritude or even Pity.

Here's what struck me first...

Andy Dufresne: ... there are places in this world that aren't made out of stone. That there's something inside... that they can't get to, that they can't touch. That's yours

Ellis Redding: What're you talking about?

Andy Dufresne: Hope.

Years later, Ellis Redding thought of his dear friend....

"I have to remind myself
that some birds aren't meant to be caged, that's all.

Their feathers are just too bright
and when they fly away,
the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice...

but still, the place you live
is that much more drab and empty that they're gone"

Imagine

Yesterday, I was talking about not 'dividing' the Indian anymore. Previously, I have also talked about how vested interests have always pandered to religion and invoked history to justify the creation of laws and institutions whose sole purpose, visibly, was to emancipate the suppressed, but in reality was to divide people so can the vested interests would be able to maintain their strangledhold on power - power not just over our lives, but power over our dreams too.

Today I found this : Zeitgeist

Lennon's words are not just beautiful spraking with a mystic hope, but are more poignant than ever before.

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

Keeping the promise..

I came across this elaborate, informative and beautiful exposition of one of the foremost issues that is raling the world today - religion in politics.

Politics of God by Mark Lilla.

The article traces the origins of the philosophy of separation of the Church and State - one of the modern West's pillars of strength. Liberal Democracy, as it is revealed, did not pop out of Alladin's magic lamp, but evolved as a compromise architected by some clever philosophers a few hundred years ago. It it also interesting to note that although the idea of a liberal democracy was born in a pre-industrial revolution world, it only caught on and morphed into what it is today when the Bolsheviks, Nazis and Fascists began messing with the world in the early 20th century.

Lilla has got me to think of the religious and theological aspirations of the Indian independence movement. We have read plenty about who all were there and what all they did - but I never saw anything in my textbooks that talked about the theological moorings of Gandhi, Nehru or Bose.

Was it fait accompli that India would choose Democracy given that Britain was one? Or did our leaders of 1947 consciously avoid or discourage any discourse on what the theological aspirations of the Indian people would be, given that India was a geographical patchwork of 500 odd princely states which they planned to unite into a single nation-state?

We know for a fact that theology and not just politics was Jinnah's motivation to seek for a sister-state to India. The politics behind partition we know, but it would be doubly interesting to know why Gandhi, Jinnah and Nehru thought that all the Muslims of undivided India had similar theological leaning or bonding that sufficient reason to create an sister-state. And why they thought that the historical Aryan-Dravidian divide was not similar, on an epistemological scale, to the Hindu-Muslim divide.

These are questions worth pondering over. I think India is Democratic, for the lack of any other alternative. At the risk of sounding like a right-winger, I suspect that Sanatana Dharma inspired most of the Hindu leaders of 1947. Learning from history that the Hindus would acquiesce to a rule of law as long as it espoused, if not in letter, but alteast in spirit, the lofty principles of the Brahman and the Atman, and coupling it with their own belief in Sanatana Dharma, our leaders cleverly chose Democracy as the way of governing the Indian state. Any other system could fracture the fledgling nation, they would have thought.

60 years down the line, it is as important to look back on this thought - the one that created India - as it is to look ahead. For this thought aimed to keep the peoples together, bound them in a quest for life and freedom, tantalizingly describing it as a tryst with destiny. The India we bequeath to our children must keep this promise, and it's our job to ensure that we give unto them an India that is more united in this cause than it was when we arrived.

Let's not divide India and the Indian anymore.

Some things money can buy....

I bumped into this interesting read on happiness.

Apparently you are happy if you are:

1. Relishing the day
2. Dodging traffic
3. Seeing friends
4. Buying memories
5. Limiting options

Isn't it great that finally we have a bullet-point road-map to happiness? Wish they made it a little more funky, you know, used Flash Player, that happy holidays ringtone and a bunny that would grab the attention of the women(with all due respect)

I yielded to the obvious tempatation of taking such things online seriously and scoring my software self on this little algorithm of happiness. Here goes:

1. Relishing the day: Naah. I get up at 6. 30 in the goddamn morning(if you think that is late the I'll assume that you work in a different timezone). And that's to reach the mile-away bus stop in time to catch my ride to office. My first glimpse of humanity is when I get into the bus - the people in the bus look like Navjot Singh Sidhu has been talking to them all night - tells me that 'Relishing the day' is out of the question. It's freaking out of syllabus.

I actually have the honour of switching on the lights when I reach office (I'm NOT making this up) unless that is snatched away by some unfortunate soul who has a Schumacher fan for a driver. Yes, I work at a place when we take turns, and occassionally pride(not forgetting the overworked night-shifter firing his morning salvo in front of our Project Manager) in turning on ..... the lights.

I think the project manager is loaded with 'relish sensors'; nothing else could explain his unexpected appearances at times when the comrades enjoy a chuckle over a shady office PJ or indulge in that rare loathsome anti-establishment outburst or share that Kodak moment - the one with the 'I have no work' wink. At all these time, the PM unleashes his signature relish killer - that excel sheet that needs some attention, that process powerpoint that needs more punch or that late evening call with firnags that needs attendance. All the 'relish' is flushed down and out and is followed by the PM's satisfactory burp.

2. Dodging Traffic: Not in Bangalore.

3. Seeing friends: Possible. Considering that 1of my last 7 weekends was spent with friends, I still have some hopes. Its not that I am not the social types. I make the effort, I really do. But it's the first half of the movie. Remember, the climax is always in the second half where there are many ways your plans can get torpedoed. Typically it is:

1. Traffic
2. Weather .......and if these two are on your side then
3. Friend's boyfriend.......or
4. Friend's girlfriend
5. Big Fat line in the movie hall/restaurant

And even when the meeting does happen, the conversation is not the much anticipated emotional escapade. In tune with the times, the talk begins typically with the news of someone getting engaged or married, of someone trying to go onsite, of someone getting the money just in time for that new apartment, of someone's new car and the mint fresh scratch on it after the incident with Rick Shaw. The evening is spent in avoiding the 'What about you? What are your plans?' question, and when that pops, the mind goes spiralling down the abyssmal depths of anxiety.

Given all this, 1 of 7 is not bad actually. You know what is actually bad? sitting at home for more than 72 hours straight....umm...make that 73.5

4. Buying Memories: Worth a shot. I will leave no outing unphotographed in future. I can also amuse myself by morphing my face on that bungee jumper on page 3.

5. Limiting Options: Ha!

So my happiness index looks more like Bush's approval ratings right now, but the silver lining is that it can go down any further - guess that's a reason to smile..... :)

Bartender or Ship Engineer?

If you chose to be a Bartender, thinking of the charm, the fun and 'opportunities', of mixing that cocktail that would make you look like Brian Flanagan you hosed yourself big-time. You will earn a third Ship Engineer would.

Check this out:

Best Jobs
Worst Jobs

Of course, I am talking about America here. It much simpler in India. The best and the worst jobs are the same - Software Engineer.

And while you are at it, check out The Most Annoying Office Habits....I liked the pictures in there......may be will take a print or two and stick it in my Cubedom

Matrix Reloaded!!

Being a regular at Scott Adams' site gives one access to plenty of interesting BS. Today I found what Scott had found at NYT.

Excerpt:
“My gut feeling, and it’s nothing more than that,” he says, “is that there’s a 20 percent chance we’re living in a computer simulation.”
- Philosopher Dude at Oxford

Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch

What do you think? I think the Wachowski brothers can sue these guys :)

Geek Squad and the Half Blooded Leaders

Its not that these guys are not likeable.


They are intelligent. Articulate. Well informed. Espouse a ideology, not a dynasty. Always work as a team, atleast visibly. Young, comparatively. Never been indicted.


On any day, they would be everyone's choice for political office.



Its sad to see what these guys are upto, though. All through Mr. Singh's tenure, the Left has behaved as the proverbial remote control. Power without Accountability - the heady mix that triggered the collapse of the beacon of communism almost two decades ago - is tormenting the Indian polity today.


Thrusted to the Lok Sabha in unexpectedly large numbers in 2004, the Left, instead of expending the 'political capital' by constructively contributing to the nation, is today belying the apparent maturity in its ranks by choosing to act as a barking dog and nothing more.


The brouhaha created by Karat and Co. over the nuclear deal is a case in point. I am not saying that they don't have a point. They do. The geek-squad(to borrow a term from capitalist America) always has a point. Taking the 123 bait may not be worth the risk. For 60 years, India has managed to speak its own voice. We did squeak non-alignment, but our actions were clearer than words. It was always From Russia With Love.


Keeping Vodka as the nation's first drink had its advantages(although, ideally, we should have stopped at vodka and not imported all that bureaucracy). We were safe from both Uncles Sam and Mao. It helped that the Soviet Union was communist. That way we couldn't be accused of creating a race or religion based brotherhood.


Not to digress, but yes, Russia, SAARC and the Commonwealth kept India fairly busy. Pakistan too helped, chipping in with a war here and there. And throughout, India had to ask NOBODY before making its own decision on stuff. And that kept our big-fat nation fairly safe. Either people didn't know whose side we were on or they just assumed that we we on their side.


Which brings me back to the point of this post. I mostly agree with the Left's concerns on the implications (read obligations) this 123 agreement will carry with it. Yes, America is freaking awesome. Its like us - democratic and likes software. Its got Harley Davidson, Halle Berry and Homer Simpson. It has Google and Lockheed Martin. It also has Pepsi and NASA. America is America. It also produced Bush and gave him two lives. There is no reason it couldn't do the same again.


So yes, Karat and Co. are right. It helps that the little red book they carry says 'Hate America for the heck of it'. The 123 deal may not be in India's best interests. Not in this time and age. Not with Dr. Huntington keeping the score in the ongoing clash of civilizations.


But alas, are they, Karat and Co, going to do anything about it? NO. Suave Sitaram has entered the field. Now, it'll turn into a fight over the English literature in the 123 agreement.

Unfortunately, the Left's behaviour cannot be characterized as anything but irresponsible and convoluted and spans sheer tokenism. They are looking like a bunch of morons, just like the MPs from Samajwadi Party who opposed the deal for the heck of it. I don't expect the SP to understand geopolitics, but surely the Left must.


Like every other protest, this is nothing more than a hogwash. They won't let Madam leave office, for the fear that there is a Modi lurking to get his hands on India that is (Akhand)Bharat.
But they will keep up the noise, making people wonder what its all about when it doesn't matter.


Karat must be a happy man. He knows that until Madam calls his bluff, he can pester Dr. Singh. And when she does, he'll call Sita. No one in India enjoys so much power behind the scenes as does Karat. Its a shame that he is using it to cry wolf than to fight it.

IBN does a retake!

Surprise!

In what is being touted as a 'rejoinder' to Ms. Ghose's rather patronizing conclusions in her published article a couple of days back, IBN has published this write-up by one Mr. Omair Ahmad. It is an interesting read and in short Mr. Ahmad crunches a few numbers to conclude that after all India's prisons are NOT full of muslims.

I applaud IBNs decision to publish this because between playing the much romaticized pseudo-secular, inclusive observer or the quintessential devil's advocate, jounalists, especially in these times when political correctness seems to be the end of imagination, fail to do the basic thing - which is not to pander to sentimentality but to look at information objectively and provide the reader/viewer the data he/she needs to draw conclusions around what has been presented.

In our quest to apologise to history and to appear as be making things right we must not run overboard. The Hindu majority in India happens to be fact. Just as the christian majority of the west of the muslim majority of the middle-east. But somehow, Indians, for far too long, have chosen to be rather parochial - always looking 'down' to the muslims and chirstians and 'displaying' Mother India's benovelance by spreading the arms out to 'lift' them from the obscurity of a non-Hindu Indian life.

And this has not always worked. For every Shah Bano, there is a Godhra and for every Mandal there will be an Ayodhya. The government has always looked at building walls around the minority communities(not just religious minority, but even regional minorities) in India either by legislation or by charity(doling out crores of rupees in fancy 'packages'). The is no genuine effort to address the issues faced by minorites by the fact of their being under-represented in the social structure. Its always been symbolic. The Hindus are here. We will listen to you, not because you are an Indian, but because our ancestors spent their lives killing yours.

The media, with its reach and influence, has unfortunately succumbed to this craze. TV Channels and newspapers want to appear non-partisan than to epouse the truth.

While getting carried away by political correctness may seem fashionable, Indians must realize that our job is as much to pass on to our next generation an India that is united and strong as it is to fix problems of the past, if not more. And that will happen only if the votebanks of today - political, economic and social are dismantled and no new ones are erected.

PS: Wonder if IBN sneaked in some correctness by getting a Muslim to refute a Hindu's delusions....

ROLL ON!

Goshed!

More pesudo-intellectual BS from Ms. Ghose. 

Some quotable quotes from her musings(Hindustan Times actually published it)

1. Soon India's jails will be choc-a-block with Muslims.

2. How can justice can be thoroughly done through the mountains of documentation, the sheer bulk of facts and contradictions, the long delayed trial and lapses in human memory that must have come faced poor Justice PD Kode

3. Indian civil society turned its back on haneef, instead vilifying the prime minister when he made the mistake of confessing he had had a sleepless night about Haneef's parents.

Now I am no right winger or a left winger. And no Rhodes Scholar like Ms. Ghose. But hey, I don't need to be one to call this what it actually is.

India's prisons choc-a-bloc with Muslims. Full marks for creativity. I think she should have gone ahead and thought of what the blood-sucking Hindu's, with the proverbial 'immune from prosecution' swagger would name the prisons(probably Lahore, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Karachi....)

And thank goodness we have Ms. Ghose to remind us of a the serious medical situation of Mr. Kode losing memory. What's next? Lets overturn Nanavati vs. Maharashtra

and bring in the jurors. That way it will be a collective memory loss, and that would sell well.

But I can't disagree about Mr. Singh's vilification. I thought Beard Blue blew it too. I mean, he's is the freaking Prime Minister of India, and he spoke like cry-baby. An Indian citizen is being held for some ridiculuos reason and all he's got to say is 'Oh I feel sorry for his parents'. Stand up and be counted. Use the damn phone. Call people. I think you have people in your office who do that for you. DO something. And talk about that. Not about your sleepless night. So, I do agree with you Ms. Ghose.

We have problems. I agree. Justice was delayed. And as long as there are lawyers, there will always be the cries of justice being denied. 14 years is a long time for anyone. For Shaikh. For Khairulla. For Qureshi. For Memon. And for everyone who knew someone who died that day. 

But the intention was not to fill India's prisons with Muslims. Shaikh was treated innocent until proven guilty. So were most of them until Mr. Kode found reasons under law to call them criminals. And they can still get to the Supreme Court. And just as in the Parliament attack case, justice could rule in their favour this time. 

I am with you on what has been done with the Srikrishna Commission Report. But its not because the Hindu's of India that the Report has not been actioned upon by the people in power. It is because the of the people in power who want to keep the Memon's coming. Give unto us a Memon and we will give you more Shah Bano's. Its the duplicity, not the conspiracy at play here.

The conspiracy of silence was when Awasi called himself a muslim first, a MLA next and attacked Taslima - and no one said a word. 

Because, as long as there are Awasis and Memons, there will be people who will conspire to be silent in the hope that they can offer more Shah Bano's and forget about the Srikrishnas.

ZZZ

I came across this Fake Steve Jobs news article today and checked it out. Its quite funny actually.

One write-up, in particular, was this interesting poke-job on Opensource.

Apart from these online escapades, I'm pretty much living the bored engineer life. Its back to the dreaded Bus-Office-Coffee-Cig-More coffee cig-Bus routine. I did manage to get through Friedman's soliloquy in The World Is Flat.

The more satisfying read was The Namesake. I must confess that Ms. Lahiri has inspired me to get back to reading fiction - something I stopped doing once I saw the brick-size LoTR back in college. I am now re-reading some O'Henry and plan to start off Scott Adams' God's Debris soon.

So Long Blog.