Kuch Hone Wala Hai!!!

Valentine's Day is near by. 2 days to go. As usual I don't have a Valentine. I don't know if it is for this reason, but since this morning, since I've entered office, most of those females, who normally don't give a damn about me, are looking somewhat different. One had put on a particularly bright lip-stick and came walking towards me with a smile...said a 'hi'...then a 'bye'...then a 'stupid'...and went away. Another, a moti, went past me, ithlati-balkhati, in a black skirt...an unusually pleasant scene...and she turned and smiled too. And another, was walking right in front of me in a wonderful yellow salwar-kameez, in a highly seductive way, giving jhhatkaas to her hair once in a few steps, pulling that hanging latt backwards soon after every jhhatka. I hope all these are not hallucinations. I am not able to concentrate on work. I guess the time has come. Kuch Hone Wala Hai!!!

Rats

One of the weirdest places for rats to hide is in the Toilet. They do exactly that in my house. I am fed up. I am scared of shitting. It is really creepy. I am having restless nights because of this problem. I don't know what to do. I keep lots of Rat-Kill in there. But that doesn't help even a bit. Those rats seem to like it. They eat all the Rat-Kill pieces, shit all over the place and then hide inside the hole. They keep coming out whenever they want to party. I feel those rats have developed a resistance to whatever poison Rat-Kill contains. And probably, I am feeding those rats and allowing them to grow. Is it possible that they like me coz I give them all that 'food' everyday?

I keep the toilet-door closed all the time so that they don't move into the house. I even tried sprinkling acid inside and pouring a little inside the hole. Even that didn't help. Those rats had come through the hole from somewhere underground. It reminds me of a story in which some prisoners dig an underground passage to run out of the prison. They keep digging and moving underground. And after some distance, when they dig up and come out, they find themselves in a police-station.

There are lots of cats in my locality. Perhaps this way, the rats keep themselves safe from all those cats. So what if they have to endure human shit! And over the past few days, those rats seem to have figured out that it's safer to come out of the hole during late-night than during the day. But once in every few days, nature calls me at odd times. Like yesterday. And those rats scare me like hell. Imagine, you open the door and you find a huge black hairy dirty smelly creature moving on the white tiles. It's awful. Please tell me some good ways of getting rid of this problem. I'd be very very thankful. Rat-Kill and Hydrochloric Acid don't work. Those rats may actually be stuck there, but I'm too scared to let them out, run after them and kill the damn creatures.

English and Non-Phonetic Scripts

"Entrepreneur" is a such a difficult word to pronounce that I give up the idea of becoming one as soon as it strikes me which, believe me, it does pretty often. The word is such a tongue twister, something in me always stops me from trying to pronounce it. It's so irritating to say it or hear it. Click Here with your speakers turned on, to hear "Entrepreneur". It's pronounced as "ontroprinyure". Nobody can guess this pronunciation by just looking at the spelling. There are many other such words which I don't like to utter. Most of the Hindi Gaalis for example. The same Gaalis in English sound ok and more civilized but less intense at the same time. They don't usually have any impact though. I think the golden rule is - give gaalis to someone in Hindi if you really mean to hurt the person, and in English if it's just for fun. Englis is a phunny languaga na. So use it for phun.

Another such word is "Rendezvous". I hate it. Click on the link to hear it. It's pronounced as something like "Rondavu". This sounds like a Hindi gaali. What I don't understand is, if "Rondavu" is the way it is supposed to be pronounced, why spell it as "Rendezvous". English is full of this kind of words. Ok, I know English is not phonetc and all. But that's the point...why the hell is it not? Isn't a script meant to be a symbolic depiction of sounds of a language? And even if English is not phonetic, that doesn't give you the liberty to spell words in some way and pronounce in some other way for no good reason. It's totally unnecessary. It seems like a bunch of mischievous people sat together and invented this confusing script and defined its inconsistent usage, just to have some fun. Can we do something about it?

Laguage is a medium for verbal expression. It's for communication via speech and sound. For any language, there have to be words which have meanings and fixed ways of pronunciation. A script is a set of symbols by which we can write whatever is spoken, so that it can be read later on to produce the same sounds as if we are hearing all that. So a script is a way of storing data, which can be retrieved as and when desired. The process of "Reading" a script is to convert it to lingual sounds.

Assuming that all languages are on an equal level in terms of having words, meanings and pronunciations, let's try to understand how having a phonetic script is better than having a non-phonetic script. In case of a phonetic script, there is nothing like a spelling. If you know the script and the syntax, you can write any word, any sound in any language. The concept of spelling becomes crucial in case of non-phonetic scripts like that of English, because even if you know the entire alphabet, you cannot spell any word straightaway coz those alphabets don't behave in a reliably similar way at all places. So you have to "know" the spelling as defined by some authority. As a result, such languages end up consuming a lot of your memory to remember the spellings of all the words you know. That's an inefficient model to follow. Why not have a phonetic script instead? Learn the script and you are done!

Another advantage with phonetic scripts is that you can program a computer to read them. That's possible because when the rules are fixed and are consistently followed, you can always program a machine to work according to them. For non-phonetic scripts like that of English, there are more exceptions than rules, which will result in inefficient programs and the output will be a mess. Pronunciation of names is one good example. Mis-Pronunciation is less likely if names are written in phonetic scripts. With non-phonetic scripts, the computer may need a huge database of all the words with their correct pronunciations. You may not bother about wasting some memory of the computer and there could be algorithms to browse the database faster for each word, but all that is absolutely unnecessary. And what about the new words that keep getting added to the language? And imagine, probably we've already created such a database in our brains when we learnt written English. May be, our brains are too fast and efficient to make this clutter noticable...And I guess, as I am typing this article, the way I'm browsing my database - words and sounds to their spellings - is opposite to what I do when I read something...so the brain might need to work harder when I read or write in English, thereby consuming resources which I could otherwise have contributed to the clarity of my thought.

It's impossible to get rid of English or its script at this stage. We've come too far away with English to replace the language or its script with any other language or script. It's grown to become the laguage connecting people all over the world. English has to stay, inspite of all the problems associated with it.

come on India !!!

There are many in my office who sit and stare at their computer monitors all day without doing anything. Actually there is not enough work to do. From my work-experience of 2.6 years in the software industry in two companies, one very large and one medium-sized, and from what I come to know from my friends about their companies, I can confidently say that there is a great deal of disguised unemployment in the IT industry. It is just that nobody is worried about it coz the salaries are still quite high as compared to other sectors and on top of it, IT seems to be on the boom. It's creating jobs for our enormous young population. Probably, this disguised unemployment is inevitable for some time, given the fact that we have recently started rowing upstream.

We have indeed followed a unique model - of trying to grow by expanding the services sector first. But we must also start thinking of other possible areas of growth and not stay obsessed with IT forever. One may argue that there are booms in retail, energy, etc. and some revival of the manufacturing industry as well. That's correct, but the problem that is eroding our growth story is lack of adequate skills in our work-force. We have people, in numbers like nowhere else. Yet, we are not doing enough to educate and train our young population so that they can contribute efficiently. A lot of screws need to be tightened at all basic levels - of education, administration, culture and mind-sets. The government needs to set the right frameworks for the private sector work in, and to prosper by exploring and creating new opportunities, so that more and more jobs are generated for our youth without compromising the growth of the nation.

We need more responsible leaders. And for that, we need well-informed and judicious citizens. Let's make our democracy more meaningful by encouraging and electing the right people to lead us. It's time we stopped getting carried away by the age-old maladies that have been crippling our societies. We need to enlighten and empower each other and create a new and prosperous India. The world is looking at us. Let's not close our eyes.

Tagged...

Here we go...a tag taken up from Sindhu.

---

Favorite Color: Green
Favorite Food: Pani Puri 
Favorite Month: December (Sarkaye Leyo Khatiya Jaada Lage!!!)
Favorite Songs:
- Ae Ajnabi (Dil Se)
- Kyon Chupate Ho Mann Ki Baat (Mann)
- Dil Mera Churaya Kyon (Akele Hum Akele Tum)
- Aap Ki Kashish (Aashiq Banaya Aapne)
- Mere Khwabon Ka Harr Ek Naksh (Jism)
- Bebasi, Dard Ka Aalam (Baabul)
- Chand Sifarish (Fanaa)
- Tadap Tadap Ke (Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam)
- Chand Chupa (Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam)
- Musafir Jaane Waale (Gadar)
- Kya Karein Kya Na Karein (Rangeela)
- Raat Ki Hatheli Par (Refugee)
- Papa Kehte Hain (Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak)
- Ghar Se Nikalte Hi (Papa Kehte Hain)
- Bin Tere Sanam (Yaara Dildara)
Favorite Movie: Life is Beautiful
Favorite Sport: None
Favorite Season: Winter (again - Sarkaye Leyo Khatiya Jaada Lage!!!)
Favorite Day Of the week: Saturday (Start of the weekend, and Monday is far away!)
Favorite Ice Cream Flavor: Strawberry
Favorite Time of Day: 6.45 AM (Can sleep some more!!!)

8 CURRENTS
Current Mood: Tired of being idle.
Current Taste: Teekha-Meetha Mix!
Current Clothes: Jeans-pants to cover the bottom and a full-sleeves Shirt to cover my top.
Current Desktop: Lara Dutta's hot pic!
Current Toenail Color: Don't color nails. So it's the natural nail color.
Current Time: 4:35 PM
Current Surroundings: Cubicles all around, with people "working".
Current Thoughts: Nobody comments on my blog :-(

6 FIRSTS
First Best Friend: Vikash and Gopu (KG-I). We used to sit together all the time. Also did a lot of mischief together. Once during KG-I, three of us peed out through the class-room window. It was my idea. To me that made a lot of sense at that time. It was cruel to send small KG kids to the same toilet where big-big high-school kids used to pee. It was a scary toilet and we could never pee whole-heartedly over there. Moti-Miss, our class-teacher, saw us peeing out of the window and shouted at us. Being the leader, I had to shout back. Maine bhi madam ko bol diya: "Aap log jo chaho wo karte ho, par hame kuch nahi karne dete!"
First Screen Name: yvsridhar
First Pet: No pets ever.
First Piercing: None
First Album: Lata Mangeshkar's Remixed songs by Sonali Bajpai.
First Movie: Pyar-Mohabbat (Govinda and Mandakini Starrer) (As far as I can remember)

6 LASTS
Last Cigarette: 1st July 2006 (First and Last!), Didn't check the brand...I was drunk.
Last Drink: Smirnoff Vodka, Dec 24 2006...Quit Drinking after that.
Last Car Ride: Maruti 800, took a Lift from office to Home...about a month back.
Last Movie Seen: Traffic Signal, decent movie.
Last Phone Call: Kuvalaya Singh, frustoo career discussions!
Last Book Read: Life of Pi, great story.
Have You Ever Broken the Law: NO! ;-)
Have You Ever Been Arrested: NO
Have You Ever Been on TV: YES! On "Hello Bilaspur", Bilaspur's local channel. All those who cleared the JEE from Bilaspur were interviewed.
Have You Ever Lied: NO! (any answer to this question cannot be relied upon, unless another question is asked to test its veracity)
Have You Ever Kissed Someone You Didn't Know: Never Kissed anyone:-(((

5 THINGS
Thing You're Wearing: dark blue underwear, white baniyan with short half sleeves, blue jeans, full-sleeves brown checks wala shirt, titan watch, woodland shoes, dark blue socks, spectacles with black metal frame & glass-lenses.
Things You've Done Today: Lots of failed attempts to blog on various topics since morning.
Thing You Can Hear Right Now: my neighbour, a Project Manager, talking loudly on fone.
Thing You Can't Live Without: my comb
Thing You Do When You're Bored: call someone.

 4 PLACES YOU'VE BEEN TODAY: Office, and nowhere else.

3 PEOPLE YOU CAN TELL ANYTHING TO: Myself, Myself, Myself.

2 CHOICES
1. Black or White: Black. White gets dirty very soon and very easily.
2. Hot or Cold: Hot!

1 THING YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE: Fall in Love!

Aishwarya Married Thrice Already!!!

Yes, that's true...her 3 hubbies are - a peepal tree at Banaras, a banana tree at a Bengalooru temple and a God's idol in Ayodhya.

According to the Wikipedia a Manglik is a person born when Mars is in the 2nd, 4th, 7th, 8th, or 12th house of the Vedic Astrology's lunar chart. The 'handicap' is called Mangal Dosha. 'This condition is believed by some to be devastating for marriage, causing discomfort and tension in relationship, leading to seperation and divorce, and in some cases, it is believed to cause untimely death of one spouse. This is attributed to the "fiery" nature of this planet.' That's creepy. Why should someone be born like that? I always knew Aishwarya was a difficult girl for a human to marry.

I need to check if I am Manglik. I used to think that everyone born on "Mangalwar" must be Manglik. But I was wrong. Now I will have to check out where the hell those planets were roaming when I was born. I had been thinking that an MBA, some jogging sessions to reduce my tummy, a Thread Ceremony, a few episodes of Sex and the City and a few of Desperate Housewives should be enough to get myself ready for marriage. But now if I turn out to be a God damn freakin' Manglik, I'll have to do some extra preparations, like marrying a peepal tree, a banana tree and some Goddess. I'll do all that well in advance and have all the certificates ready so that my lady doesn't have to worry about all those things just before marriage, like poor Abhishek.

I've heard that the time of birth is not very accurately read and noted in most cases. And moreover, who has a clock synchronized with the correct IST at Allahabad or All India Radio or Radio Mirchi. Those planets are sly creatures. They never stay for long in the same house. I think, to play safe, everyone should get rid of this Mangal Dosha before marriage. It can be carried out soon after birth like the NaamKaran or Vaccinations. I hope this wouldn't fall under the purview of 'Child Marriage'.

One good thing is that if two Mangliks marry each other, then their Mangal Doshas cancel each other and they can live happily ever after. Cool Man! God is great!

Nursery Admissions Issue

Nursery Admissions in Delhi have become a nightmare for many parents in Delhi. And to their kids as well. I never attended nursery school. There were few in Bilaspur when I was that age. And moreover, I don't think I needed it. Mom was always around to take care of me, and impart preliminary fundas to me before joining KinderGarten. Nowadays, nurseries and even pre-nurseries and play-homes have become fashion. There are reasons for that of course. They make lives convenient for parents. And as far as kids are concerned, it is hard to understand what kids think at that age. A survey to find out what some of the adults think about their experience of attending play-homes, pre-nurseries and nurseries in their childhood would be interesting.

To stop the interviewing of parents and kids by some of the private nurseries in Delhi, the Delhi High Court had set up a panel, called the the Ganguly Panel, after Mr. Ashok Ganguly, the Chairman of CBSE. The purpose of the panel was to come up with a methodology which the schools must follow to select the right kids from all the applicants. A methodology that is fair and just and at the same time serves the interests of both schools and parents.

The Ganguly Panel came up with a 100-point Formula and the Delhi High Court passed a Verdict that the admissions process be conducted in accordance with the Ganguly Panel recommendations. And the Supreme Court later upheld the HC verdict. However, there is heavy resentment from all the Schools in Delhi. They are challenging the 100-pt criteria as an attempt to take away the autonomy of private schools. And the parents are not happy either. The recommendations seem to have failed big time.

Let's take a look at the 100-pt Formula. The following are its main points
- No interviews of children and parents

- Common admission calendar for all schools
Dec 1-20: Sale of admission forms.
Jan 31: Submission of admission forms.
Feb 1-20: Deadline for schools to release the first lists of selected kids.
Feb 26: Payment of fees and completion of admission formalities.
Feb 26: Last date for releasing the 2nd list.
Apr 1: Classes Start.

- Points based on the distance(d km) between the kid's residence and school:
0 <= d <= 3 : 20 Points
3 <= d <= 10: 8 + 12x(10-d)/7 Points
d > 10: 0 Points
 
- 20 points if kid has any sibling in the same school.
 
- Points based on parental qualification:
max 10 points per parent (so 20 Points for both combined).
The rule is:
Post Graduation and beyond - 10 Points
Graduation - 8 Points
Sr. Secondary - 6 Points
Class X - 4 Points
Below Class X - 0
 
- 5 points if the kid is a girl.
 
- 5 points for kids with special needs.
 
- 5 points per parent who's an alumnus.
 
- 20 points, the school can award according to their requirements which have to be made public through prior advertisement.

That makes it 100 points.
 
- In case there’s a tie, draw of lots has been recommended as the way out.

It took me a good amount of time to understand the above 100-point-system. No wonder most schools condemn it as too complicated to follow. Not only does it look very complicated, but it also triggers a feeling, at least in me, that it does not solve the actual problem in any way. And some of the points-criteria seem illogical and non-sensical.

For example, there are 20 points at stake based on how far one stays from the school where he/she wants to apply. Clearly, there's an underlying assumption that there is a uniform distribution of "private" schools all over Delhi, which is inconceivable in such a city. A 'private' school like any other business needs a considerable level of investment and the motive is very much to earn profits, besides educating kids. The concentration of schools in various parts of the city depends on a lot of factors. Cost and availability of land, other resources, suitability of the area for operating a school, proximity to residential areas, etc. And private schools have a better concentration in posh localities, where they can hope for better profits. Quite a lot of them operate at all levels - Nursery, KinderGarten, Primary, Secondary and Higher Secondary. That's the reason why talking of siblings in the same school seems to make sense. That's the reason there is a mad rush to get the kids into those nursery schools. Once you have u'r kid in, you don't have to worry for a long time. And that's why the schools are concerned as well. A schools reputation rests on its results. Therefore taking in the right kids at nursery level becomes very crucial.

Distance is not a very big issue for rich people. They'd rather go for a reputed school, known for quality education...even if it is a little far. Similarly, at the other extreme is a poor guy who on the one hand will never bother about nurseries, and on the other, will always try to find a school that costs the least. Many just don't bother to get their kids educated. That case is an extreme beyond all extremes.

There are 20 points for parents' education...10 points per parent. Now this really sets in a vicious circle - penalizing students if the parents are not adequately educated. The idea behind this may be that if the parents are well-educated, they can teach the kids better at home, though I don't find this fully convincing. And now with government freeing the kids of school-bags, homeworks and exams, the kids hardly have any studying to do at home. And beyond primary school, most kids study on their own or go to tuitions anyway. Parents' role is just to motivate, and keep a watch, which the less educated parent can do as well. I even feel that a less educated parent will be more careful and concerned about proper education of his/her child because he understands what one loses when he/she does not have those degrees. Now additionally, he/she has some points also to lose. That's sad.

Some of those weightages are too high. Probably the Ganguly Panel was too obsessed with the number 100 and were too hasty to find enough variables to hold some points. For example, one fifth of u'r chances of admission depend on whether you have a sibling in that school. And the panel has suggested the schools to give more weightages to single parents in the 20 points that the schools are free to set their criteria for. May be this is because single parents will lose a lot of points because of not having an educated spouse, 2nd child, and if not alumni.

Let's understand what's the problem that the High Court tried to address and what's the real problem that is breaking the system down. The High Court saw the superficial problem of interviewing of parents and kids by schools so as to decide whether to allow admissions of the kids or not. In fact a petition by a concerned and responsible citizen drew the attention of the Judiciary to this mal-practice. The problem was genuine indeed. The Judiciary needed just to put an end to this mal-practice. It did that, but it also went ahead and did a lot more.

Private institutions are driven by market forces. And the beauty of the market is that it is ruthless in punishing a poor-quality product, and it appropriately rewards the good ones. One cannot make rules out of ethical practices and responsibilites, which themselves are not always rigid. The HC made it mandatory for the schools to follow the recommendations of the Ganguly Panel and the SC upheld its decision. It was ok to the extent of banning the interviews. But beyond that, the Licence-Raj mindset crept in.

The panel justifies the recommendations by saying that they will lead to more responsible behavior by parents and schools towards the kids and will avoid discrimination. But it is rather leading to more serious problems and a lot of inefficiencies. For example, people now come with fake documents of residence etc. How will a school ensure the correctness of such information. All this is unnecessary head-ache for a school. Following the rules, and not breaking them, is supposed to make life easy.

What the Ganguly Panel should really be doing is to try to understand the basic problem of the demand exceeding the supply of seats in the schools...why are there not enough schools set up to ensure that all the kids get admissions in good Schools. Its recommendations should rather be addressed to the gorvernment to create suitable conditions such that more and more private players are encouraged to start new schools and there is healthy competetion. Clearly there is a huge demand. And supply has to come spontaneously, if someone does not create obstructions. Sadly our governments do exactly that in many situations. What they should be doing instead, is to intervene just to the extent that they have to and in the way they are expected to, and to concentrate on more serious and basic issues; not to show its competency in percentages and percentage-points. (Ever written CAT :P) And end up giving stupid rules that are hardly applicable to things which require judgement and not just plain numbers, which even don't cover all aspects of the admission criteria, and make assumptions, some of which are silly. It's like concentrating one one big number and ignoring hundreds of others just because they are small fractions, though anyone can see that all those fractions if added together result in a number which is a million times bigger than the big number you went ahead with.

What the government should rather be doing is to set up schools for the poor and the needy. Not to come up with and impose on everyone such 100-point models, which are no better than the already existing ones. It should grant autonomy to the schools to come up with innovative ways to improve situations. Bans on interviews do make sense. It's all analogous to the soccer game. There are lines to demarcate the boundary. There are rules of the game, which the referee has to take care by watching that everyone follows. And within that framework, the players are free to coordinate, find their ways, and take the ball to the goal. If some player breaks the rules, the referee has the right to warn him multiple times, ask him to leave the ground...but if the referee tells the players how the ball is to be kicked, who should kick it, when it should be kicked, how often, and how hard, how many goals should be scored by each team, and each player, claiming that he's trying to ensure that the spectators get the maximum pleasure...it's not just ridiculous, it's no more a game. No pleasure playing it. And watching it is more pain than entertainment. The duty of the referee is to ensure a free and fair playground where each team can put its best effort and try to win the game. The spectators are entertained in the process. They pay for it. The players enjoy playing the game. And they earn from it. Everybody wins!