Tea, coffee, chai, vada...

I usually don't eat a lot. I'm happy for people who know me to disagree, but that's besides the point. I'm more than happy with my 3 sq. meals a day, sometimes even 2 are more than sufficient. However, I become a different animal altogether when I travel.

I'm not quite sure what harmone travel ticks off, but the moment I hit the road, sea or air, I start eating. It's almost like my stomach sends a petition to the brain. I think I've even figured out what the petition says:

                                              Memo for internal use only

Issuing department: Stomach and surrounding areas in collaboration with Tongue and Co.

Intended recipient: Brain

Dear Brain,

We note with a great amount concern that our ecosystem, i.e., the human we inhabit, is showing signs of increased movement. This, to us indicates that the human is travelling. As you are, no doubt, aware, travelling results in a great deal of action and involvement of other organs. To give you a few examples, the eyes are flooded with new information and sights, the ears are treated to new sounds and the skin, overall, senses new things such as weather, clothing etc., we, the stomach and surrounding areas in collaboration with Tongue and Co. (hereinafter referred to as "the petitioners") do not get any action at all until the destination is reached. Even there, depending on the human, we are sometimes provided with the same old food to process.

This results in daily taunts and bullying of the petitioners by the rest of the body. Unable to tolerate this anymore, we hereby humbly request you to issue an order to make the human feel like eating during travel.

Thanking you,

Yours sincerely

The Petitioners

Having received this petition, the brain, which happened to be in a particularly good mood, what with all the new sights and sounds of travel that it was suddenly reminded of, issued an order. A standing order, no less. The order stated simply: Granted. Human to feel like eating at all times during travel.

Whether that is the sequence of events, I will never be sure, however, it is pretty close to it, that I'm positive.

Ever since I can remember, I've always felt the urge to eat DURING travel. Whether it was during trips around the Nilgiris with my father on the old Avanti Kelivinator, or annual holidays to some place in India, travel became associated with eating. My father would take care of that. He would buy more or less anything and everything vegetarian to eat and he would buy it often.

Back then, the best trip I could think of would be on a train with a pantry car. That automatically ensured a steady supply of food. With a huge variety of food dished out by the IRCTC (the catering arm of the Indian Railways), the whole trip was filled with vadais, masala vadais, samosas, bread omelette (all time favourite, more on this below), all variety of dosas, idli (not very often, as it was not my favourite food), puris, tea and coffee (the coffee used to taste really bad, but we'd drink one anyway). Every major station would vastly improve the list to include parottas (also a fav.), biryani, varieties and varieties of rice.

The ideal trip was by Inter-City Express from Coimbatore to Chennai or Bangalore. This particular train had a very good pantry and the journey was only 6-8 hours long, which meant you could eat all of the above in 20-30 min intervals and not have to repeat the process till the return journey starts, a few days later. Besides, the cost was also sustainable as a whole day of eating would typically set us back around Rs. 150, this level of spending couldn't be sustained on longer journeys. Longer journeys meant the first day or two were covered by food from home, typically puries and my favourite type of potato curry, which we've helpfully named picnic curry, followed by biryani, puli sadam and thayir sadam which my mother would have packed and kept ready. These journeys were all about family time, with such a lot of food to be polished off!

Later on, as I grew older, the tendency to eat while travelling did not wane. Any road trip I took would be interrupted by food stops roughly every hour and a half. I remember one particularly adventurous journey from Coimbatore to Chennai (a distance of around 525km). I had managed to evade parental radar and travel by motorcycle. I left home at 5 a.m.

With the initial adrenalin kick of taking such a long trip on two wheels and the fact that I wanted to put enough distance between myself and Coimbatore before what I had done was discovered, thereby rendering an order to ask me come back to base and take the train futile, I made it non-stop to Salem, a distance of 150km in 3 hours, which, for the state of roads at the time, was faster than taking a bus and just half an hour slower than the train. As I entered Salem, I had to take the ring road to continue along the highway towards Chennai. Around 10km into the ring road, stomach and its henchman decided enough was enough. They had put up with me and kept quiet up until that point simply because of the control adrenalin had over them. With Salem breached, there was no way a return to base order would come now. They decided to erupt in protest and I became despertately hungry. Helpfully, there was a Saravanaa Bhavan in the vicinity and I started my first pitstop. Turned out to be a longish one since it took me the best part of an hour to start the bike up again.

Satisfied, I hit the road again and from then on, I would stop at every town that had more than a tea shop. Remember, I mentioned that at Salem, I was faster than a bus? Going by that logic, I should have reached Chennai around 3pm that afternoon. When I actually pulled into Chennai, it was well past 7pm, closer to 8, in fact. Around an hour of that delay could be reliably attributed to enjoying nature. The rest is all food.

The love of food during travel did not end when I left the shores of India to start my first job at Dubai either. Needless to say, I munched my way through most of the first flight of my life. Once there, I fell in love with discrete little tea shops that dot the highways of the middle east. These are all, invariably, run by a bloke from Kerala. These guys have the knack of making the best every omelette sandwich.

At this point, I feel obligated to differentiate the famous bread omelette of the Indian Railways and Gelf omelette sandwich. Please indulge me here. The bread omelette, is made up of 2 thickish slices of the softest white bread I have eaten in India. For some reason, I have not been able to find bread of comparable softness outside the railway. I do not, for the life of me, know why. Anyway, between these slices, there would be some ketchup and a perfectly spiced omlette made from 2 eggs with very finely chopped onion, tomato and green chilli. That is it. Nothing else. The Gelf omelette sandwich on the other hand was not exactly a sandwich. It consisted of a piece of malabar parotta, the layered, fluffy one, which would be made into a roll. The stuffing was a perfectly spiced omlette made from 2 eggs with very finely chopped onion, tomato and green chilli. That's right, the omlette was the same taste, not complaining though!

On the average trip of 200km in the UAE, I would make around 2.5 stops. Bear in mind that my average driving speed then was 100kmh, so that's 2.5 stops in 2 hours...just saying.

The UK is no different, the only difference being there is no one food that I can look forward to. Every 20 miles on the motorway, there is either a Burger King, starbucks, Costa or some such equally bland choice of food, but I still hit the brake every 2 service stations!

Moral of the story... this is an appeal to any enterprising Malayalee reading this post, my request is, the UK sorely needs an omelette sandwich and chai shop. Please invest!

A royal affair of sorts

I have three words to describe the events of 29 April 2011. Oh my God! Sure they got married, sure they are the future king and queen of the United Kingdom and sure it was a bank holiday (thank you for that BTW). But by golly! Did the TV channels take it upon themselves to make sure not one soul on this planet with a television or even access to a television gets to see this extravaganza.

I am not here to comment on the wedding, its lavishness or the craze surrounding the affair (OK, maybe I will comment on the craze, it is after all, too tempting to pass up!). I will instead draw parallels (or, rather, lack of parallels) to my own wedding, which as you may recall, was a pompous and much celebrated affair of equal magnificence, albeit restricted to the town of Chidambaram. You see, I think my wedding was a touch more grand. I am not delusional, nor am I conceited. I state facts here. Only facts. Here's why:

• Kate rolled up to her wedding in a rather old looking car. It may have been a custom modified Rolls Royce, but to quote my mother, "she is coming in an old car only, can't they afford a newer, more luxurious car?" I on the other hand rode into my wedding in a horse drawn carriage. Not one horse, but two horses drew said carriage.
• What's more, poor William was already situated within the Abbey when Kate arrived. I had the pleasure of picking up milady and riding to the wedding hall with her (you see, the old Rolls had no space in it to accommodate Wills). How romantic was that!
• All Kate had on their way to the Abbey was crowds of people cheering and shouting. I, on the other hand, had fireworks, crowds, traffic, dancers, James Band, friends and relatives leading me to the hall, surely you can't beat that!
• Their wedding started at 9:51am on 29 April 2011 and all proceedings will be complete at 2:50pm on 29 April. Mine, on the other hand began at 6:00pm on 6 December and finished at 1:30pm on 8 December! You cannot deny that a longer celebration is a bigger celebration!
• The church had pin drop silence when the wedding was going on, meaning the slightest noise could have potentially disrupted proceedings. At my wedding, you could have exploded a bomb outside the hall and it wouldn't have been heard, for the noise level inside the hall was significantly higher than a jet plane at full blast.
• Most importantly, when the priests prayed to the Lord to bless the couple, everyone could understand what the Lord was being requested to do. At my wedding, considering all chants were in Sanskrit, not one soul knew what sort of deal was being struck with our multitude of Lords for our well being. It is a well known fact that a secret, undecipherable message is far more exotic than an open and understandable one.
• Even more importantly than the most important point, although the world at large knew these folks were getting married, not one poster or banner marked the occasion. It is a well known fact that my and milady's photographs were plastered all across Chidambaram just to announce this! 

As I have undeniably proved above, my wedding was better than one fit for a king! So there.

Now for the crazies. 

Watching the invitees flock into the venue, one trend just could not be ignored. All men were in uniform, not of the ceremonial kind, but of the fashionable kind. They all wore dark suits/tuxedoes, white shirts, bows and polished black shoes. To boot, they all had sorry..er, solemn looking faces like they were going to watch someone beat a puppy. The women on the other hand, all wore elegant gowns and dresses that set off their looks like nobody's business, however, for some reason, it seemed to me that they were all pulled through a hedge of some sort on their way to the Abbey, what with the fancy "hats" they wore! I mean, a hat that looks like a set of antlers doesn't really qualify as a hat does it? Just a sample for your viewing pleasure:

Talk of analysis, the BBC commentator actually got emotional about the fact that Kate was wearing a particular designer's dress and that quote it was a proud day for fashion unquote. 

And the bets! God the bets! Will it rain, will Kate wear this designer's dress or that, will Will kiss Kate on the cheek or lips when they appear at the palace! Come on!!

All said done, here's wishing the young couple a long and happy life as a couple! Like their vows said, may they be together till death do them apart!

Look! On the TV, is that a show? No, it's a megaaaa serial!

The folks were visiting. Which can, among other good things, mean one thing. Soaps. Not the kind of soap that scrubs away at dirt to leave you squeaky clean, but the kind that scrubs away at your soul and leaves you torn between wanting to kill the villain, the hero, the director and/or yourself. Also fondly referred to by the apt moniker, mega serials. They truly are mega and run for years. What's commendable is that they are run for anywhere between 2 to 5 years on a wafer thin story line that changes and takes u-turns at the drop of a hat. Not u-turns of the '24' variety, but u-turns never-the-less.

These soaps thrive on stereotypes. The protagonist, usually a youngish woman is down trodden, abused and considered inferior to the man. Add a stereotypical mother-in-law, a rude sis-in-law, lousy husband, a lousier father, abusive mother and you have the template for virtually every  soap on every channel. For variety and garnishing, you can change the name of the character, the type of torture inflicted on the poor sod who stumbles into this family and the thought is that a riveting program has already taken shape - in the writer/producer's head at least. All that remains is addition of the constant drone of background music and  repetitive dialogues with random sound effects and the producer is assured of a 5 year-seems-like-a-25 year contract with any channel. Humour and banter do not exist in this paradigm, the only thing that matters is to inflict as much pain and sorrow on the heroine as possible to still allow the program to be broadcast before the watershed timings.

I have only one question to the fine folks behind all this suffering. Why this kolaveri?

I mean, is it too much to ask if I want to come back from a long day at the office, plop onto the couch and let the idiot box take me away to a place that is joyful? After spending upwards of 8 hours fighting battles at work, I really do not want to solve problems for anyone other than my own family members. I really, really don't.

Why is it that there is not a single soap in India that has happiness/joy/comedy as its main agenda? Does that mean nobody in India is happy? I seriously doubt it. Or is it that only sorrow can be stretched and stretched until eternity?

I hate comparisons, but the mind simply cannot ignore sitcoms like MASH, Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens, Big Bang Theory, Rules of Engagement etc., that made people laugh for years on end and continue to delight generations. Sure, there were sob fests like Bold and Beautiful, Sex and the City etc at the other end of the spectrum, but the important thing is that there was choice. If I choose to laugh watching Indian serials, I can only laugh at the abusrdity of the situation facing the heroine who is crying up a river!

While on topic, I also suppose I should whinge a bit at the dialogue writing. Consider this situation:

The herione is contemplating the actions of the lousy husband, unable to believe why he did what he did and is doing so in the midst of her friends (3 in number).

I will now attempt to write dialogue the dialogue the way I urge do the magnanimous thing and look beyond my poor dialogue writing skills and focus on the message, try and be the bigger man/woman/child in this case.

• Normal/comedy soap

Heroine: "Why did that lousy son-of-~*@"h did that? Why? Why? Why?"
Friends: *shrug shoulders* "Maybe he was pissed with you or something?"

• The megaaaa-serials

Episode #1:
Husband does what is to be whinged about.

Episode #2:
Herione wistfully thinks of what he did, which includes a detailed flashback of what happened, return to Episode #1.

Episode #3:
Heroine meets friend number 1 and remains wistful. Friend #1 asks her "Why so glum chum?" Heroine recounts what happened. Flashback ensues, return to Episode #1. Heroine finds recollection too much to digest, sobs a bucket load of tears.

Episode #4:
Heroine meets friend number 2 and remains wistful. Friend #2 asks her "Why so glum chum?" Heroine recounts what happened. Flashback ensues, return to Episode #1. Heroine and Friend #1 find recollection too much to digest, sob a bucket load of tears. Viewers mop their moist eyes.

Episode #5:
Heroine meets friend number 3 and remains wistful. Friend #3 asks her "Why so glum chum?" Heroine recounts what happened. Flashback ensues, return to Episode #1. Heroine, friend #1, Friend #2 and viewers find recollection too much to digest, sob a bucket load of tears.

Episode #6:
Heroine recounts what happened. Flashback ensues, return to Episode #1. Heroine then asks Friend #1, "Why did he do that, Friend #1?" Friend #1 has no response to provide, no answers to give, so cries some more.

Heroine then asks Friend #2, "Why did he do that, Friend #2?" Friend #2 has no response to provide, no answers to give, so joins Friend #1 and cries some more.

Heroine then asks Friend #3, "Why did he do that, Friend #3?" Friend #3 says, "Maybe he was pissed with you or something?" and finds that too difficult to digest so cries, all of them cry for 5 minutes not able to comprehend why a husband would be pissed with the perfect herione.

Viewers begin playing with a loaded revolver.

See how subtle plot variations and changes to story were incorporated? See how the serial was run for an entire week and the viewer didn't even notice that happening? I can hear the producer laughing all the way to the bank. "Lousy Englis fellows," he thinks, "don't know how to make money!"

It's a good thing gun licensing is very strict and controlled in India, everything happens for a reason.

IMHO, though, the biggest winner of them all are the glycerine companies. Last I heard they were raking in profits from supplying the 'tears' to the producers of mega serials.

Pardon me...you're going to get the book thrown at you for that!!

Allegedly, a whole bunch of things give it to you. Potatoes, beans, raw bananas, lentils to name but a few. Sometimes not eating anything also results in the same fate. Old people get it, so do young ones. Even tiny toddlers barely out of the womb are not immune to it. That's right, I'm talking about wind. Not the kind that blows in one's backyard, but the kind that comes out of one's backside. Yep, the humble, taboo fart.

Everyone has to pass wind every now and then, yet no one would stand up and say they let one loose when the immediate area surrounding the gathering gets smothered in toxic gases. It's a natural body function, yet we cannot talk about it, just like the one who cannot be named in Harry Potter movies. Everyone knows he exists, but refuse to acknowledge it in the vain hope that not acknowledging his presence somehow makes him go away. According to women's magazines and movies, men are comfortable letting a few rip when in the midst of other men and women do not talk of such dirty things. However, I have not met such men and thankfully have not been in the midst of a demonstration.

Before you all wiggle your noses and head for the close button on the browser, let me assure you, I have no intention of analysing or discussing the nuances of different varieties of wind. I'd like to think I am above such frivolities.

As part of my random reads, I came across this link from a friend on Facebook. I really pity the people of Malawi. They are all going to have to develop a whole new gas free diet. However, more than the people of Malawi, do you know who I pity more? The policemen and women of the country. Not only are they going to have to go after hard hitting criminals, they're going to have to book petty farts as well. Literally.

As I think about the d(r)aft proposal by the Hon. George Fartless Chaponda, a number of visions are popping up in my head:

Scenario #1:

Picture a busy market place. People bustling about. Window shopping, actual shopping, shop lifting, shop keeping and the like. Constable DC is going about on his beat. DC is a vigilant man, and he knows the law like the back of his hand. He hears a noise. It's unmistakeable. Someone had just broken the law. No alarms going off, no guns in sight, not a single person violated. However, the law is broken. DC jumps into action. 

He uses his astute skills of observation and directional hearing to isolate the direction in which the noise came from. He quickly swirls to his right and notices 25 people within 5 feet of him (the market is bustling after all). He is confident the decibel level and frequency of the noise mean it cannot have been further than 5 feet away. What should be do now? DC lines all 25 of them up. After some quick thinking, DC decides his first approach had better be direct questioning and asks, "Alright, I know there was wind passed by one of you lot. You know who you are and you better 'fess up or else...", he finishes with a threat. One dramatic pause later, he is none the wiser, not one soul speaks up. He looks at their faces and realises he's dealing with a serial farter here. Any other person would have broken into a sweat by now. 

All 25 of them are cool as a whistle. 24 of them because they have nothing to worry about and 1 is really good at breaking the law. The next approach in the book issued to all policemen and women, 'the police guide to catching farters' comes to DC's mind. He starts questing suspects one by one. DC has been extensively trained in the matter at the special summer course they had over 3 days in the beach resort of Dickbey (a fine resort, thinks DC as he remembers the 3 days spent in luxury at the training resort). He asks each of them what they have eaten since 5am the previous morning, after all, what goes in, comes out. By the process of elimination, he is confident he has reduced the number of suspects from 25 to 10. 

The next process is the 'tummy tap'. A gaseous tummy has a distinctive tap. This further reduces the number of suspects to 2. DC looks long and hard at the two of them. One of them starts showing the strain of hiding illegality and blurts out, "OK! It was me!" DC is a happy man, he's got his criminal and issues the penalty notice. Justice has been served. A thousand guilty can go free, but one innocent man shall not be punished. Never mind the 3 shops that got looted while DC was interrogating the suspects. A happy DC returns to his beat and prrrrrrt. "Here we go again!" says DC with a sigh and lines up suspects. 

Scenario #2:

A council meeting is taking place. A fierce debate is raging around the level of state subsidy to be given to universities. Members of the public are watching from the viewing gallery. The fate of the city hangs in balance, it is, after all this city is famous for its educational institutions. Suddenly the lawmakers are silenced by the foul smell wafting down from the viewing area. The police are summoned to the scene of the crime. No noise was heard by anyone in the vicinity. This was a 'silent' one. All usual techniques of interrogation prove fruitless and not one person comes forward with a confession. The councillors decide that it is time for an emergency session. Trivial things like education can be left behind and they jump right into a discussion on how to deal with silent farts. 12 hours later, a resolution is passed. In the event a silent fart perpetrator does not confess to the crime, the entire gathering in the vicinity of ground zero will be penalised. 

Scenario #3:

One of the suggestions Mr. Chaponda gives is to go use the restroom to fart. Queues outside restrooms in the highstreet become quite long with people waiting to get into the restroom. Things are getting quite impatient with people anxious to relieve themselves. Meanwhile, at the entrance to the restroom, an enterprising young man has set up a stall, charging an atrocious amount for a pair of ear and nose plugs. People going in snap them up like nobody's business, it is wild in there after all...

Scenario #4:

In other news, police are now being issued with air quality meters, after new research finds that the air quality around a fart perpetrator's backside contains lingering effects of the offending gasses, this sensor picks this up, thereby allowing police to easily convict perpetrators of this heinous crime. Police are now following people around town sticking the sensor on their backsides in order to comply with the law. 

Interesting times...!

Padi padi, iPad!

I've been pottering about with the iPad for a smidge more than 4 months now, after the missus very kindly gifted me one for my birthday. I'm not going to say anything other reviewers who have been smitten with the thing have not said. I am going gush about its virtues and how 'cool' it is. Never before in the history of mankind has a single company generated so much interest among layman. No, scratch that. I'm sure folks behind the invention of fire, the tyre and sliced bread generated an equally high level of interest.

Every since I laid my hands on a device at an Apple store, I've wanted it. Sure it's only a bigger version of the iPhone, without the phone. That is the point, see, it's a bigger version of the iPhone.

Everything is simple and everything just works. Sure, there are the odd bugs that bug me, but nothing that would cause me to lose interest.

It's convenient and handy. Can be taken everywhere and I do take it everywhere I go. Here's a short list of the places I've used the device:

• On the sofa,
• In the garden
• in the train
• In a car
• In a flight
• On the john
• On the bed
• In the bath (note: take extra care not to drop it into the water)
• I'm sure you're seeing a pattern here...

I take the thing everywhere I go. In fact even when I sleep, it's always near my pillow. Before I'm dismissed as a weird person, a conclusion that, no doubt, several of you will hasten to do, I only take it everywhere because it's not out of place in any of the places I've taken it so far!

So what is it that's had me go ga-ga?

• the screen, the deliciously crisp screen. It's perfect for emails, browsing the net, watching movies and playing games. Everything is so clear and visible. Although it is little more than a slab of glass and plate at the back, it feels sturdy and incredibly well put together. There are no moving parts, which means panel gaps and rough edges are something the device has not heard of.

• iPad apps. As a policy, on my iPhone, I do not buy applications. Apps just shouldn't be bought. If app X costs £4.99 and can do 'n' number of things, I am quite happy to download 'n' free apps that in total perform 'n-1' functions. Until the iPad came along. I'm now happy to pay for apps that just look so awesome! In fact, I have a subscription to the Economist that I was all set to cancel. The reason for wanting to cancel the subscription was quite simple. It's a weekly magazine and I've had the subscription for approximately 8 months. There are roughly 32 unopened issues lying in wait for my father to come and read. You do the math. Just as I was about to hit the cancel subscription button on the website, along came the Economist iPad app and an announcement that subscribers to the tree killing edition get all areas access to the app included. I thought I'll give it a whirl and boy! I've read every issue that's come out since the app was launched! The paper one still comes in each week, but now I put it away unopened without even a pang of guilt!

When something looks as good as it does on the iPad, I ALMOST don't mind paying to get it!

• email. I don't need to say anymore, but neither computer based email clients, online email or mobile email can come anywhere near the email experience on the iPad.

• games. Specially driving games. These are supremely awesome to play and just so engaging!

• eBook reader. The Kindle can do one thing, which it does brilliantly. The iPad does several things brilliantly and this is one of them. Not only do you get a choice of e-readers to select from (iBooks, Kindle among others), you also get an amazing screen to read on! I don't even want to say anything about the blog reading experience on it. Suffice to say I wouldn't read blogs on any other device if I could avoid it. (not elaborating just saved readers around 15 minutes of time!)

• battery life. It just goes on and on! Even with my obsessive use, it goes roughly 2-3 weeks between charges. The one time I tried my darned best to make it run of out juice in one sitting, I ran out of juice before it did!

• engaging. On a recent trip to the US, I (of course!) took it with me and what a boon it was! We went on this road trip from San Francisco to San Diego with my sister's family. The niece is an active bubbly little bee and during the whole 10 hour drive, all she needed was a couple of hours to nap and unrestricted use of the iPad. She drew, drew some more, played scrabble, angry birds, cross-n-knots and what not! We didn't hear a peep from her the whole drive. 

I don't blame anyone for thinking, based on that I've said above, that I'm incapable of finding fault with the device. I can and I have. Big ones.

• eBook reader. It's a lousy eBook reader. Aha! I know your eyes just shot up a couple of centimetres on the screen to see the exact opposite of this sentence written on things I like. That's right, the very same advantage I found is my biggest disadvantage. The Kindle can do one thing and it does so brilliantly, the iPad, on the other hand is a master of all trades. It can do several things in a way most ordinary computers would struggle to do. When iOS 4 was released, it unleashed the beast within with multi-tasking. Now it is impossible to read a book on the iPad. Before one page is done with, one feels like playing a game, checking facebook, checking emails, reading blogs, random news items and the like. There's too much packed into this. I just cannot focus. On a Kindle or other dedicated reader, a book is all you can read and that's what one ends up reading. 

• Then there is the screen. Brilliant and amazing as it is, it just cannot hold water against the e-ink display of dedicated readers. As amazing as it is, it is just not easy on the eye. Much as I would love (and still do), I just cannot see myself curling up with the iPad and blasting my way through a book the way a paperback would do. The 'ol eyes would simply put their feet up and announce an early retirement. In a dark room, even the lowest power setting is too bright. 

Apart from two of its biggest advantages turning into its biggest disadvantages, I am smitten by this little stroke of genius and I know for sure that when Mr. S Jobs comes back and announces the iPad 2 and fixes the things he deliberately left out just to make sure iPad 2 can include them and be 'all new', I will miss the camera that would change the face of video chat.

Finally, I suppose huge thanks are due to the missus for uniting me with the pad... iPad :)

An argument goes up in smoke

I'm the sort of bloke who spends spare time reading about this and that. Nothing strange about it, but the 'this' and that I refer to is hardly entertaining. I like reading about obscure projects, products, reviews. I also follow cars across the world. One of the things being thrown about like rubbish out of a house in the Yewnited States of America is being carbon neutral. Never before has being neutral been so much in vogue.

I had seen the term being thrown around quite a bit over the past few years and I thought it was one of those crazy green things like you pay to have a sapling planted in the Amazon rain forest if you fart in the UK or something like that. Turns out it's that and a lot more. Pretty complex stuff this. To cut a long story short, there is a company that finds guys/gals who don't fart much and hooks them up with more gassy individuals and makes a tidy sum in between. One sets off the other and all that sort of thing. However, I'm not in the mood to cut long stories short and hence you get the whole 9 yards.

Let's start by setting the scene here. Person A, living in the UK wants to do the following:

• drive a car
• take a train
• drink coffee
• not freeze to death
• take a holiday
• switch on a light
• use the toilet
• watch TV
• use a bicycle (yes, cycling is not pollution free, not according to these nutters. The cycle is manufactured in a CO2 belching factory and talking of belching, I would say they've even successfully measured how much CO2 we emit while puffing and panting our way up a hill).
• you get the drift. 

Any activity performed by human beings is now contributing to global warming (err, sorry Climate Change) because we all emit tonnes and tonnes of CO2 each year and we're heating the place up (please don't ask me why London is still so cold, I do not know). Wanting to do something about climate change is a very noble and essential thought. Sure going green costs money and sure, it's not an easy thing to do.

Coming back to our case, getting Mr. A to be carbon neutral.

Scheme 1: The beginning

In the case above, person A would, in order to rectify the harm caused to the environment, walk/ride/drive/swim/fly down to the nearest IKEA, get a sapling, for a round sum of £15, that has been flown into the UK from Timbuktu and plant it in his garden. That sapling would then be tended to by A and in around 20 years become a tree that eats up CO2 and spits out Oxygen.

However, apart from IKEA, which flew the sapling in from T'tu no one else makes a profit. In steps the carbon trader Z, who, would tell Mr. A that in exchange for a 'paltry' £30, she will contact her middleman Y in United States, who would contact his middleman X in Mexico, who would contact his middleman W in Brazil, who will contact a farmer friend of his, a Mr. Poor Farmer, to plant a sapling in the Amazon rainforest, which would immediately offset the carbons emitted by A for the next 3 generations. Mr. A is very happy, feels his farsightedness has saved the planet and goes about smugly driving a gas guzzler to the grocery shop, which is around the corner. Mr. A need not worry about tending to the sapling, he need not worry about protecting the sapling from random creatures eating the tree that is supposed to save 3 generations of his, or from other random farmers clearing the very bit of forest this sapling has been planted in. He's paid money for something and has delegated his responsibility.

Scheme 2: Evolution

This went on for a while and then our friendly neighbourhood carbon trader Mr. Z saw her income drop, there were too many new entrants jumping onto the trading bandwagon, which pushed prices down and there is only so much of the Amazon that can be replanted without it resembling a paddy field.

One day, Ms. Z met her wizardly f(r)iends in the financial services sector, the ones that deal with derivatives and swaps. Soon after she saw them, she came back to her house and found it smelling of food that she had forgotten to put in the freezer. She immediately whipped out her can of room freshener and lo and behold! The smell vanished!

Ms. Z didn't come first in her university for no reason; she quickly put two and two together and came with the answer. Not four, but twenty two. Thinking out of the box and all that fancy stuff.

She jumped onto the internet and found a news item on Google about this factory in China, belonging to Hu Plc that suddenly became environmentally conscious and had replaced all its internal combustion power plants by thousands of labourers using a bicycle pump to blow air into a turbine, which would spin to generate electricity to power the factory (there was no green intention to the move, 1000 labours worked out cheaper than 1000 tonnes of coal, so the switch was made). She called that factory, rustled up the 5 words of Mandarin she had googled before the call and convinced them to calculate how much of CO2 they saved. They came up with a random number, let's say 1 million tonnes of CO2 per year. This made our heroine Z a happy camper.

She got busy with all her contacts, including our very own Mr. A and told them, "Earlier, you paid me money to do something, now I refuse to do anything. However, I do know a company that is doing something about the environment. Hu Plc is a responsible corporate. Realising they are polluting the environment, they have taken concrete, bold and pioneering steps to reduce their carbon footprint. Having invested millions of dollars in reducing their carbon emissions, they are keen in passing on any benefit they get from saving the environment. They have agreed to set off the saving they have achieved in carbon emissions against the CO2 you continue to irresponsibly emit by driving your car all over the country. So if you pay me £100 per year per car, in lieu of the CO2 you are emitting, I will use that money to buy carbon credits from Hu Plc, who, in essence are willing to bear the blame for YOUR pollution!" she finished with a tear in her eye.

Mr. A was suitably impressed by the fact that someone else now bears his cross and pays up. Z then pays Hu Plc a grand sum of £40 for the trouble it is taking to be named in the scheme. Z's profit had just shot up from £9.95 (£15 from Scheme 1, less commissions to Y in the US, X, W of £5, £0.2 each to the blokes in Mexico and Brazil, less £0.1 to Mr. Poor Farmer who actually planted the sapling) to a grand sum of £60. Hu Plc was very happy as it had not only saved money on not using coal, it had a 1000 labourers to exploit and also this dumb person Z from UK who thought the whole scheme was designed for environment friendliness and paid £40 for it! As for Mr. A, he was even happier than scheme 1 because his CO2 emissions were taken care of immediately as opposed to 20 years in the future, so he can continue to pollute and better still, not get affected by it, because someone else was not polluting for him! Win-win situation.

Scheme 3: The present

Scheme 2 seemed a good racket and Z saw money pouring into her coffers. More people starting the same racket didn't seem to affect profits adversely since more people were buying into the premise that getting someone else to be responsible for them was better than them having to take responsibility. However, the government and regulators didn't seem to be very helpful and insisted that the carbons NOT emitted be audited and checked to ensure that if a million tonnes was saved, not more than a million tonnes of carbon credit was sold on to offset not more than a million tonnes. In other words, supply of carbon credit became limited, which restricted sales. This pushed prices up, which was good, but profits were not adequate since the cost also went up. Z, after all, had a lifestyle to fund. She had become used to this lifestyle.

The next Eureka! moment for Z came when she had gone to the shoe shop for a spot of shopping.

As she used her credit card to pay for the £5,000 Gucci shoes she had just bought, she thought about when her credit card bill was due and if she needed to move some money around in the next few weeks to ensure money was in her account to pay the bill.

Then it hit her. "Of course, I use my credit card to buy things with money I don't have right now. I use future income to pay for my present lifestyle!" she thought. "In the same way, if I find a company that is GOING to invest in becoming green, I can use the carbon they are GOING to not be emitting and sell it to the losers who want to pollute more now!" She hurried home clutching her Gucci pumps, all the while drafting the next killer argument to put forward to the likes of Mr. A...so began her love affair with Carbon Futures trading, a scheme which not only generated a ton of money, but also removed the problem of limited supply of carbon credits. Pay for the present with the future. Win-win situation all over again!

The end.

I am all for going green and helping companies that genuinely want to go green for the good of the environment. We owe it ourselves and our future generations to save the precious planet we are in. We only have one place we can call home and that one place is increasingly becoming a hostile place to live, and that is largely due to us. However, I do not believe the solution is for ordinary citizens to simply pay money to pass on the responsibility of getting something done. That way we are just passing the buck around and not enough people do things for the betterment of the Earth. Saving the planet is an individual responsibility. We all have to play our part in it. If Mr. A planted the tree himself, he would feel attached to the tree, guard it from predators and ensure he does his darn best to see it grow into a large tree that helps clean up the environment around the very area he is polluting. If he pays someone to do it for him, the responsibility is just not there. It only shifts the onus of doing something to someone else. That, is my humble opinion.

Leftist arguments

Nope, not a politically motivated post. Now that we've got that out of the way...I'd indulged in some pond hopping over Christmas and decided to grace the US of A with a flying visit (pun totally intended!). After much uncertainty due to the white stuff. I'm not talking about the white stuff that lands one in jail, the white stuff that lands one in hospital. Wait, that white stuff also lands one in hospital, okay, I'm talking of snow.

We managed to sneak out of the British Isles through a small window of opportunity that the weather afforded us. Landing in the US, I couldn't help but notice one thing right away. The US likes to do things the exact opposite way to the rest of the world. This attitude hit me in the face right at the airport.

I'm usually accustomed to waiting in lines at the airports I've landed in for 'passport control', or immigration. Except for Indian airports, I'm always standing in line at the 'non-residents', 'immigrants' or foreigners queue. In the US I stood in the 'aliens' queue. I understand that the US is a world away from the rest of the world. Being a 10 hour flight from any place outside North America must have certainly contributed to this impression Americans have that they are a separate planet. I am, however, obliged to inform America that I have referred to the latest Google maps and NASA earth-from-space photography, both of whom are US registered entities, and America is still located on planet Earth. I have read somewhere that an alien is usually a person who isn't domiciled on the home planet, so, I humbly submit that I am not an alien, but a foreigner.

After entering planet United States of America, the excitement of the inter-planetary travel hit old bladder hard and I walked toward the 'rest-room' to empty said bladder. Out of sheer force of habit, I walked into the room on the left, only to get told off by one of the ladies who surprised me by being in the men's room. Turns out the ladies 'rest-room' was on the left and the blokes on the right, while I am used to vice-versa. Maybe I am being too picky or thick headed. Once I got into the right toilet and finished my business, I reached for the flush handle, on the right side of the cistern and didn't find one there. Of course, the handle was on the left! During the whole time I was in the States, I would religiously grope the right side of the flush before actually flushing. Having done my business and thoroughly washing my hand, I went out got into my BIL's car, and naturally it was left hand drive.

Now there is a school of thought that thinks left hand drive is the natural one and that the rest of the world is bonkers to drive on the other side. You will find that school to be mostly in America. There is another school of thought that things driving on the right side of the road is, well, not right. I am neutral about this and don't mind either, having lived in America aping Dubai and in Britain and its erstwhile colony. So this is not so much a gripe, but an observation.

The journey between the airport and home was completed without incident. On coming home, I found all switches to be in the on position, but no lights seemed to be on. So I assumed that for all its sophistication and industrial development, the place had a power cut. Then it hit me. On is off and off is on. What the world knows as the universal on position, is the off posish there.

All this got me thinking. Why would this happen? Why would everything, even the most mundane of things be the exact opposite of what the rest of the world considers normal? My thinking and groping later, I came to a plausible reason for this. When the old geezer Amerigo Vespucci did the hop across the ocean back in the 15th century, he must have been pretty peeved at matters the way they were done in Europe. He thought, "Right, I've now discovered my own continent. I'm going to do things my way here. And that way is to do things in a manner contrary to how the rest of those fools in Europe do it." And there folks, is how America came to be the way it is. I'm positive. Astute observers would no doubt, point out to me that in the 15th century, there were no cars, no electricity or immigration or indeed toilets. My explanation covers this too. The tradition established by Amerigo has been carried on by generations after him, who, no doubt, often visited Europe to make sure they were doing everything the Europeans didn't.

Happy New Year folks!