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September 25, 2009

One-Click Activism

Over the last couple of weeks, I have received at least 2-3 emails daily from people who I don't know from Raju or Adam, asking me to sign an online petition against the proposed construction of a statue of Shivaji Maharaj.

Whatever may be the merits or demerits of this petition and the project, I find it quite annoying to receive emails from people I don't know, but in whose address books, unfortunately, at some point in time, my email ID has somehow found its way. As if spam about Viagra was not enough, I now have to deal with "armchair activists", whose only real activism is the act of flexion of the middle and distal phalanges of the index finger, which allows them to click "Forward" and then to bask in the glow of having done some good in the world by spamming everyone in their address book, permission be damned.

And then there are other equally irritating tribes, who just can’t seem to learn correct email etiquette!

One is that of the "proud Indian", whose members will forward every email that says something even remotely "patriotic", especially emails that extol the virtues of Indians across the globe and end with the line "India is the only country in the World that has never invaded another". You can easily recognize these emails, because they are usually in rainbow colors, with most words in bold, often with ALL CAPs turned on, shouting "don't ignore me, you must read me".

Then there are the bleeding hearts, who will forward every email about people suffering from lung cancer or a brain tumor, asking for hugs, kisses, wishes, money and God knows what else! These are the ones who are so date-challenged that they can’t seem to learn how to scroll down to the end of the email to see that it was actually written 5 years ago, which means that even if the contents were true at the time, the person concerned has already merged with the ether!

And then there are the "alarmists", who love to spread the arrival of a new virus or worm, unaware that not only has this alarm been raised a 100 times before, but there probably is no fire to begin with. These are the same people who get their knickers in a big twist when they read about teeth dissolving overnight in a glass of Coke (not true), and then want everyone to stop drinking Coke, or think that by refusing to buy petrol for one day, they will be able to solve the world's oil problem.

And then there are the ones who really believe that there are companies on the Internet just willing to throw money at us and so keep recirculating mails from 1999 about how Microsoft and AOL will pay cash or Sony-Ericsson will hand out laptops, to those who forward emails to everyone they know. Yeah right!

And then there are the “inner beauty” seekers who keep sending life-changing couplets superimposed on sunsets in Powerpoint presentations, followed by the “jokers”, who just can’t stop sending and resending the same old PJs over and over again.

Email is a wonderful tool when used correctly, but a pain when misused. So please…do grow up! The next time you see a multi-colored ALERT, IN ALL CAPS, with italics and in bold, or if someone wants to give you a free gift or is giving away money for nothing, just drop that email into your trash-can and if that’s difficult, just count to 100 before clicking "Forward". Please!

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Posted by bhavinj at 07:43 PM | Comments (0)

September 18, 2009

Cattle Class! Whose Insult is it Anyway!

Mr. Shashi Tharoor has provided much needed fodder for cud-chewing, lazy hacks like me. I presume that by now, everyone has read or heard his tweet on flying economy class "absolutely, (I will fly) in cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows!”, which, despite the obvious bull-dropping, seems to be what someone from the non-cattle, poodle-class (thanks, Melody) would come up with.
 
And so for the last two days, while a bunch of politicians and prominent people have without a second thought, slammed Mr. Tharoor for being insensitive, the ones who really should have a beef with him are unfortunately silent and unmooing. Cows, buffaloes, bulls, yaks and all other members of the cattle clan can never be compared to people traveling in economy, since, traveling cows by law, get much more space than humans, 6 square feet being the bare minimum, while our human herds are penned into just around 31-36 inches of width, depending on the airline. So, if Mr. Tharoor, without mincing words, wants to call a cow, a cow, I can't but help feel that unwittingly he is being meaner to them than to humans.

Take my example and then tell me who's better off. I am 6 ft 1/2 inches tall. When traveling in economy, my pre-flight efforts are entirely focused on getting either front-row seats or emergency row seats, for the extra leg-space. If this does not happen, then, during the flight, I either have to slump down into my seat so that I can extend my legs below the preceding one, or I have to pull up my legs, so that my knees rest against the seat in front. If the person in front decides to push his/her seat back, then the only way I can manage to continue sitting is to push my seat back as well, which leads to a cascade of further pushbacks behind me. If for some reason, I am unable to push back, then the only alternative I have is to jam my knees into the seat in front in such a way that the other person just cannot push-back. It then becomes an interesting battle of strength between my knees and the seat in front, which is quite similar to the "elbow" game of strategy that one plays to gain control of the armrest from the adjacent co-passenger. Traveling cows don't need to do any of this!

In any case, for centuries, the world has been divided into the creamy-class (thanks Shimpa) and the cattle-class. The poodle-creamy-class minority remains dominant by ensuring that the cattle classes are corralled, skinned and milked to the maximum extent possible, and kept perennially subservient. If this dichotomous inequality spills over into air travel, is that any surprise? It’s really all about “entitlement”, which the creamy-poodle class believes to be its right; no one minds if the flight is all economy, but if there happens to be a business section, then, even if vegetarian, they would rather eat steak than be seen rubbing jaws with the cattle class.
 
Is there no fitting retort to Mr. Tharoor’s pithy snub? Isn’t there anyone who can stand up for the cattle and the cattle class? Mind it! There is one person, who Mr. Tharoor has to be very wary of, a person for whom the very Earth is his Bedroom, the Sky, it’s Ceiling and the whole Creation, his Native Place. The protector of cows and related beings, a man sworn to fight non-vegans, our very own Indian cowboy, Quick Gun Murugan! Beware, I say!

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Posted by bhavinj at 05:39 PM | Comments (0)

September 13, 2009

130 Days

The countdown to 17th January 2010 has begun! Starting today, there are just 130 days left to train for the Mumbai Marathon.

Last year, I was just about able to complete the half-marathon, in a ridiculously long 2 hours and 50 minutes. This time, my aim is to try for 2 1/2 hours, but shaving off 20 minutes is not a joke, considering that the body has deteriorated further in this one year.

Once the marathon registrations began in July, I started working on some tools to help me run better. One great site is the New York Times running calculator at http://health.nytimes.com/run-well, which not only allows you to plan your schedule, depending on the method of running and training you’ve adopted, but also creates a plan that keeps track of the miles that you’ve run and the targets that you’ve set and achieved. I am currently on the Jeff Galloway plan, which involves running 3 times a week with a run-walk-run method of 3-1-3. I am actually running faster with this technique, than when I was running continuously.

To keep track of the running itself, I use the Nokia Sports Tracker, a GPS-based running program on the Nokia cell-phone, which calculates in real-time, the miles that I have run, the time it takes and other similar parameters. This workout data can then be uploaded automatically to a corresponding website. However, worldwide, the Nike + paired with the IPOD is much more popular and allows runners to keep track of their miles and minutes very easily.

And then of course come the various do's and don’ts, which just keep getting more and more confusing.
•    Some say that stretching is a must; others quote studies that show that this can be detrimental, especially for runners.
•    Some say that drinking coffee in any form, an hour before the run, improves performance; others obviously don't agree.
•    Some say that water is enough for hydration; others swear by Gatorade and Powerade and other similar drinks.
•    Some wear the latest padded shoes; others say that fancy shoes make no difference and yet others even run barefoot.
•    Some say that you should run everyday; others say that you should take a break of at least one day between runs to let your muscles rest.
•    Some say that the longer you sleep every day, the better you run; others find no difference.
•    Some cannot run without music; others find music extremely distracting.
•    Some swear by mud; others say it makes no difference whether you run on concrete or mud.
•    Some insist on cross-training a couple of days a week (swimming, etc); others say it makes no difference to the running.
•    Some purists say that running means running all the time; others believe that the body behaves better with short walk rests, between bursts of running.
And it goes on and on with the advice, since there are as many suggestions as there are experts in this field.

And yet in the end it comes down to just one elemental issue. The simple act of running! Putting on a pair of shoes, with shorts or a track-suit and a T-shirt, without any fancy equipment, getting out into the open, either in a garden or sports track or on the road and pounding the ground, one foot after another, on and on, emptying your mind of all unnecessary thought, zen-like, focusing on just one goal; running.

As over 15,000 people will do on 17 January 2010.

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Posted by bhavinj at 07:25 AM | Comments (0)

September 04, 2009

Is Anyone Writing the New Guide to Parenting?

It started with a friend request on Facebook from Jai (name changed), who I couldn't identify because he had not uploaded a photograph. Out of curiosity, I asked my wife, whether she knew any Jay who might want to be an FB friend and she told me that she had received a similar request from him, and had figured out that this was Jai, a friend of our 9-year old kids, who stays in a neighboring building. She had immediately ignored his request. I sat on this for a day, not sure what to do, when Jay turned up at our doorstep and reminded me of the friend request he had sent. When I next logged on, I promptly clicked 'Ignore'.

Intuitively, this felt like the right thing to do. Apart from the fact that FB rules, which incidentally are commonly flouted, do not allow anyone under 13 to register, neither of my nine-year olds is on FB and I was extremely uncomfortable giving access to a 10-year old friend of theirs, to some bits of my private life, which though not quite as interesting as those of many others, are definitely up there on display for my 'friends'. In real-life, I would have never allowed this kind of access to most people, so why should things be any different on FB?

Though I try and deal with my friends list the way I would handle my friends in real-life, things do get complicated when I receive and accept friend requests from people I don't really know and have to then rely entirely upon what they put up on FB, to form opinons about them, which might turn out to be entirely wrong, if I were to ever land up meeting them face-to-face.

Kids are an entirely different ball-game! In the early days of FB, when it was first populated by youngsters, many parents got onto it, primarily to monitor the activities of their children. Today, people in their 30s and 40s are the biggest growth segments for FB and in many cases, it is now the children who probably want to be friends with their parents. The day after I ignored Jay's request, I friended a professional colleague of mine and within an hour or so, I received a friend request from his young teen son, who I don't know at all. I find these requests very difficult to deal with.

When I put up Jay's issue in front of all my friends on FB, the views expressed were all over the place. Some friends who are in the same age-group as me, were quite clear that 10-year olds should not be friended and in fact should not be on FB in the first place. Others took a much broader, liberal, view, saying that it makes no difference and that I should go ahead and friend him. Some confused the issue with being friends with their kids who had joined FB before them and others talked about sticking to rules, though I couldn't quite figure out what those rules were.

In the end, there was as much confusion among my friends, as there is in real-life, where we need to sometimes just find our own path when confronted with issues that our parents never had to deal with. For e.g., I know that I will refuse my kids' request for cellphones at this stage, but at what age is it fine for them to have one? Any rules for this?

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Posted by bhavinj at 07:32 PM | Comments (0)