I give you my word, I have just been Bauered

I have recently spent roughly 17 hours of my life living in a land where one is free to do anything, you want to come back from the dead? Check. Want to acquire WMDs to destroy the world as we know it? Check. Want to destroy a country? Check. Want to make your daughter Secretary of State? Check.

You see, I spent the last weekend catching up on Season 7 of 24. Another marathon session with Jack Bauer confirms the following:

'tis said Jack Bauer refused a syringe at a blood bank. Instead, he asked for a gun and a bucket. And that 9/11 only happened because Jack Bauer was on vacation. He'll never go on vacation again. All I can say is, Jack Bauer can:

1. kill at will (do you think he is the dubble-woh-sevan of America?)
2. taken out of a Senate hearing with consummate ease
3. whomever he thinks is necessary
4. the President of the US of A assurances at will, and the President will ignore everyone else and go with Jack's decision, just because he "gave his word"
5. every order given by commanding officers
6. be given access to classified information at the drop of a hat even though he doesn't have clearances
7. doesn't have to eat
8. get his friends classified jobs, just because he wants to work only with them, and most importantly,
9. justify all of the above!

The list is endless and so is the fun. Do not, for one instant, be fooled into thinking the Prez of the US of A is a puppet in Jack's hands whenever America faces a crisis. The Prez can also do the following:

1. appoint her own daughter as the Secretary of State without having to consult anyone and opposition parties are not even mentioned
2. every time there is a set back to National Security, she can look at the bearer of the news and say, "How can this happen? I don't care how its done, I want the person who did this be found immediately!" - I counted her saying this atleast twice every episode
3. stand by her guns and ignore all advisers, security analysts and common-sense, just because Jack said so (refer point d under things Jack can do above)
4. the first gentleman can be conned by any dimwit and end up being kidnapped. No points for guessing the IQ of the first gentleman

While all this is fun, the blokes intending to wreak havoc on USAland are no better:

1. they will let Jack infiltrate their gang in a matter of minutes and entrust him with the most critical part of the assignment, which Jack will screw up anyway
2. they get double crossed easily
3. they know the names and addresses of relatives of all government agents (how's that for doing their homework)
4. they all end up dead
5. they all end up dead, but a select few can be revived from death to make a comeback that leaves many more dead!
6. they have names like Dubaku (I cracked up when I heard the guy's name, how can a dubaku be scary?)

I'm not sure how many have seen the latest season of 24, I don't want to spoil it for anyone, so all I can say is nobody is safe, it's safer to stay indoors and lock all doors and windows :).

While watching it, another thought came to mind. The show takes place in America, where the counter terrorist agents have access to roughly the following methods of surveillance (give or take a few):

1. satellite which provide coverage of any place in a few seconds with HD clarity as if taken from a helicopter around 500 meters above the ground
2. surveillance cameras (even if they are private surveillance cameras, they are mysteriously linked to Uncle Sam's offices)
3. traffic cameras
4. infrared cameras from satellites to track heat signatures

This got me thinking. If the show were to be shot in the UK, all the satellite technology in the world would be redundant. All the agents would need is access to surveillance cameras. There are millions of cameras in this place. There was a report I read recently that every Londoner, on average, gets photographed by 300 cameras. Add to this, the proposal to have road cameras that can track every journey made by every vehicle in the UK using a network of number plate recognition cameras, blokes like Dubaku don't stand a chance!

Despite all that, there is something about that show that is gripping. You know Jack is going to kick ass in a way said ass has never been kicked before, but you still hang around to see it happen. It takes exhaustion to overcome you before you decide to switch off the TV and hit the sack, only to get up bright eyed and bushy tailed the next morning and hitting the couch with a vengeance to make up for time lost resting tired eyes.

The suspense is built up in the beginning of each show, right upto the half way mark, stalls midway and builds up towards the end and boy!, does it finish with a bang or what, leaving you gasping for air and can't wait to watch the next episode.

From having watched all seven seasons (5 of which were watched over a 4 day period), I can say the best way to watch it is continuously. If you watch it on TV, the commercial breaks will kill the tension, so will waiting for a week to get the next episode.

Having said that, I think the producers should start thinking beyond WMDs and nukes to spook people, mass alien infiltration anybody?

P.S.:

Did you know that Jack Bauer once forgot where he put his keys. He then spent the next half-hour torturing himself until he gave up the location of the keys.

Multi-national mayhem

I live in Britain where, though not on the same scale as the US of A, you do need to put a legal disclaimer on everything you do. For example, I believe it is best practice to put up a disclaimer on coffee mugs you give to visitors saying "If you are drinking coffee, spill it and burn yourself, you are stupid and careless and you cannot hold me responsible for it, on the contrary, I might sue you for staining my furniture".

Being in such a lovely place, I don't think I can be blamed for stating that what is said in this post is completely my own silly, dumb and sometimes crazy opinion. If you are offended or somehow manage to read between lines and interpret this differently, that's just too bad and you can't hold me responsible.

You must be wondering why I'm being so elaborate on making sure I don't get hauled into court, well that's because this post contains the dreaded "T" word - terrorists.

I remember when I was growing up, there used to be several brands of soft drinks, Thumbs-up, Gold Spot, 7-up, Pepsi, Coca-cola, Kaali Mark etc. At that point in time, I wasn't exactly what you might say, aware of corporate structures and branding, but if you care to dig up a bit, I'm sure 6 out of 10 brands will be owned by different companies. Then something really bad happened. The likes of Thumbs-up, 7-up etc got taken over by either Coke or Pepsico and Gold Spot, Kaali Mark and other small players simply disappeared.

The same thing happened in the late 90's and the early part of this century in telecom and automobile industries. Globally, any given mobile service provider with a coverage area greater than a few thousand square miles can be traced back to either Vodafone, Hutchison, Orange or T-mobile. Similarly, any car maker who sells more than a 25,000 cars a month can be traced back to either Toyota, Honda, GM, Fiat (save for the likes of Tata and Mahindra in India). I'm not going to go into the economics/stupidity behind all this. Its just an observation. I believe economists term this as "Consolidation of the Market" when growth is limited in multiple numbers, different companies join forces to continue to grow.

Sometime in 2001 an event called 9/11 happened in the US of A and a little known organisation called Al Qaeda, hitherto known only for small time activities shot into the spot light. Suddenly everyone wanted to get a piece of them - literally. This is perfectly normal and what has been happening since then is history.

Between then and now, something happened, which I'm sure many would have noticed. AQ started getting tons and tons of coverage and any terrorist event happening anywhere in the world immediately had an AQ angle. Bomb blast in Bangalore, India? AQ backing suspected. Kidnapping and hostage situation in Afghanistan? AQ suspected (OK that's extreme considering Afghanistan is home to AQ). Gun fire by a crazy psychopath in Germany? AQ hand suspected. Something happening in Australia? AQ angle being investigated. Pencil stolen from a child in the US? Police are also investigating if AQ is involved. Suddenly, any illegal activity in the world was being attributed to the AQ. I'm sure that in every case where police investigate an AQ angle, they are perfectly justified for doing so - I don't mean to undermine the heroic work they are doing.

It is almost as if by one cowardly, stupid act, AQ managed to trigger a massive wave of consolidation in the terrorism industry. Every crazed, psychotic and extremist organisation had a link to the AQ brand. I would assume the following conversation takes place at every terrorist board meeting:

Crazed Psychotic Leader: I don't like the way the government is treating the people, let's become terrorists.
Crazed Psychotic Followers: OK, but how do we let people around the world know we exist? Should we advertise in local newspapers?
CPL: Don't be stupid, local newspapers won't get awareness about us further than the state border. Besides, we will have to spend money to advertise. All we have to do is one dastardly act and the press automatically links us to AQ and we get instant worldwide coverage, free of charge!
CPF: Ooh, Saar you are too brilliant, no wonder you are CPL.

Unlike Steve Jobs and co. who are fiercely possessive about brand names and don't hesitate for one moment before they haul offenders to court for trademark infringement, I'm sure AQ enjoy the free publicity. It's almost like they hit the bulls-eye with 9/11 and now they can retire in the knowledge that any terrorist act anywhere in the world will automatically get an AQ stamp of recognition, keeping the organisation alive.

I wonder if they get royalty from the likes of aforementioned CPL?

Sarvamm, upset mayam

I've never been much of a movie goer. I'm more of a movie watcher. However, of late, I've dived headlong into the watching business thanks to a generous offer from Cineworld Cinemas that permits me to watch n number of movies a month, and in return for the privilege I transfer a set amount of funds from my bank account to Cineworld. It works for me and them, a win-win situation, one might say.

My policy for watching Tamil movies, until recently was to only watch something that the whole of Tamilnadu raved about for no less than 6 months. Those films are usually graced with my patronage at the movie theatres.

Now, in typical Indian isshtyle, I watch as many movies as my schedule accommodates, just to get some paisa vasool.

While in mood to confess, I might also add that I never review movies. I'm going to break that practice as well. This post is about Sarvamm.

The movie stars Arya and Trisha. The reason we zeroed in on this particular Tamil movie is because it was the only one running within a 5000 mile radius. Bad move.

The movie starts off with Arya beating someone black and blue, no explanations offered. I suppose the person getting beaten is a symbolic reference to the audience. Then there's a tacky song in which Arya entertains the audience with a performance in which he only has 2 left feet. Maybe someone should inform him of the fact that he can't dance. The song, I'm informed by the wife, has been sung by Illayaraja. He's clearly out of touch with singing, but I'm sure we can endure 5 minutes of cacophony in favour of the grander scheme of things.

This is followed by a go-karting nee, bumper car, race which sets up the introduction for Trisha. I'm not sure if its the screen at my local multiplex or if that's the real deal, Trisha doesn't even look all that pretty in this movie, she looks skinny and malnourished. The lack of looks further accentuates the absence of acting.

What follows is a grinding, nail pullingly irritating 45 minutes in which Arya tries to woo Trisha. In the middle of all this, the villain and his sidekick get introduced, resulting in the untimely death of an undertaker for no reason whatsoever. The villain is totally devoid of any expression (I have a sneaking suspicion that he tries to be that way). Bad guy stalks another bloke who has no relation at all to Trisha or Arya. How the stalkee manages to stay one step ahead of the stalker while maintaining the same standard of living, changing cars, houses, schools for his kid etc., etc., without once worrying about money or the means of earning it boggles the mind.

Somewhere around the interval, the two independent plots are loosely connected, setting up the pace for the second half, which, I admit is a half decent thriller.

Other mind boggling matters include Arya not getting affected even after getting struck by a poisonous knife, the presence of king cobras in the jungles of Munnar, not rare sightings, but a dime a dozen.

However, good prevails of stupid at the end of the day. What especially amazes me is, the director seems to have had the amazing sense to stall any progress in the 'storyline'. It's almost as if the director decided to have 3,240,213 songs in the movie, to be inserted anytime the story heated up. I suppose the conversation at the editing stage would have been something like this, "Hmm, the story is getting too interesting, olddown here, lets have a song here, here and here. Oh, lets also have a song here, just to spice things up!"

Overall it was a pretty disappointing movie. Do you know what was the most upsetting bit? I ignored several divine messages to catch this movie. I first tried to watch the movie before it released (mixed-up the release dates), then missed the bus (quite literally) and therefore missed the show, and even had a fight just before leaving thereby cancelling the movie plan. I went and watched it against all odds and I'd have been a very disappointed man had I paid money for this. Thank God for the Unlimited Pass!

An eye for an eye at the London Eye...

It was a simple enough plan. I had hired a car for official reasons and since there was a car, the idea was to take the wife and parents on a driving tour of Central London. What a day that turned out to be - and most of that was because of the car.

There's nothing much to report about the car itself, its a Ford Mondeo, what can I say! This post will be monopolised by one of the great enablers of the motor car - the road.

As mankind developed and discovered that the wheel can be used for purposes other than pottery and one wise genius decided to stick a couple of wheels under a tub with a horse up-front, Pandora's box was effectively opened. Modern London was to evolve a thousand years later, when geniuses of the same variety had discovered the joy of creating a contraption that puts one wheel behind another, a.k.a., a bicycle (more on that later).

London as a metropolis goes back to anywhere between 3500 years and 750 years depending on who you're talking to. It is understandable that so long ago, the preferred mode of transport were the human feet or the bicycle. Human feet and bikes as modes of transport have several advantages - they are healthy, environmentally friendly and most importantly, require no more width than 2 feet per "vehicle" so to speak, and is therefore, very space friendly.

Now here lies the problem. Roads, and therefore, houses and buildings were designed around these passages and when you could have a '20 lane' highway with a width of 40 feet, give or take a few feet, you have roads that are, well, narrow in the modern world.

The British in general, and Londoners in particular, seem to be very proud of their rich heritage and so, refuse to bring down old buildings just to widen roads. So all over London you will find roads that put an Amazon forest trail to shame. They are narrow, congested, have absolutely no parking facilities and most importantly, are extremely narrow. Oh, and did I mention the roads are narrow?

The well travelled among you will immediately shoot back with the fact London public transport is second to none and I should have opted for that. I accept your allegations and offer no explanations whatsoever for taking a car into that jungle.

So it was that we were pottering along from one tourist attraction to another. Baker Street came and went with nary a problem, then it was time to head towards London Bridge, I went round and round in search of parking and finally pulled into a mud compound with a big blue P over it and asked the attendant if London Bridge was walkable from that point. The answer he gave me was hardly surprising - he looked at me as if I was as I was completely batty and said, "Its a bit far from 'ere maite" and when a Londoner says something is a 'bit' far, it means is closer to the other end of the planet. London Bridge was vetoed and we proceeded to the next destination, Tower Bridge. This time I was proactive and parked close to the general direction of Tower Bridge and decided to leg it from there. So the troops were unloaded and we set of 'foot-foot' to Tower Bridge. After a brief 15 minute walk, we set sights on Tower Bridge and 5 minutes later we reached the foot of the bridge and it started pouring with rain.

The folks were abandoned under the shelter of a building and my wife and I settled into a quick jog to get back to the car, promptly lost our way and reached the car 20 minutes later. We swung by to pick up the folks only have the sun shining as though that is the only thing it is capable of doing! With each occupant of the car muttering under their breath about the weather, we proceeded towards London Eye, this time with the trusty lady from my SatNav leading the way.

On reaching London Eye, we needed to park somewhere, since I was under the impression that cars were not allowed on the Eye. This started the parking saga. Parking number 1 was closed for the day.

The SatNav lady, who strangely doesn't seem to get daunted with failures, guided me to another car park. This one was the highlight of the day. It supposedly was on the other side of the road with an approach road under the main road. So I took the exit onto the approach road and the moment it curved under the main road, things turned positively negative. The walls on both sides were covered in graffiti. By covered I mean not an inch of space was wasted. New Yorkers might say, no big deal. Agreed, the problem was that the underground artists were still there, spray painting the walls and making sure nobody defaces their masterpieces. There were roughly 10 people there (I am not too sure about the gender mix since they all had long hair, wore hoodies, were pierced and wore jeans around their thighs) and here I was with a gleaming new car - prime graffiti target. I swiftly passed them whispering a silent prayer that they don't corner me and turned the corner into the car park and virtually drove into a stone wall - the car park seemed to be non-existent, the SatNav lady had had her revenge.

Reversing out of this pickle was not an option, the road was curved for starters, then there were the 'artists' to consider and the width was no more than 6 feet. I had to do the impossible. I had to do a u-turn in that space while I was still hidden out of sight of the artists. It took me 10 minutes to do the toing and froing to turn, but I did it and we raced out of there.

P3 was full and we managed to strike gold at P4. I bunged the car into the first available space and much merry making was done at the London Eye, including a cruise down the Thames. We returned to the car after 3 hours and I was hit with a parking charge of 12 quid!

Needless to say, the journey back home was sombre, quick and quiet. The family suggested we take a trip to Westminster the next day since the car was there and I replied with a stare that would make Chuck Norris hide in fear.

I'm a failure, there I said it

I failed my school's motto i.e., Never Give In and, I failed to reach my own targets. I have no excuses and I'm guilty as charged.

No, I'm talking about achieving my blogging deadlines.

I'm talking about Executive Orders. Does that ring a bell? I'm happy to say that I finally finished page 250, but after much deliberation, I've decided to abandon ship. Its not been an easy decision and I have undergone the same trials and tribulations a captain of a sinking ship feels - do I go down with the ship or escape with the rest of crew? I have chosen the latter.

Instead, I began reading a Dan Brown and have reached page 60 in just an hour, no problems with characters or parallel plots, thank you.

150 pages after I last reported to you, I'm no closer to understanding the characters (I've lost count of the new characters by the way), so I have decided that the President of the United States will have to battle evil on his own, I will not be able to help him and I wish him luck in setting the world right.

Recession hits home...

His eagle-like eyes concentrate on the minutest details. Every movement the banker makes is the subject of an extensive audit. Why was this deposit made, how much did you credit my account with, how much have you debited for that purchase, how much rent is due to me, prove to me that you have credited my salary etc., etc., are perpetual challenges the banker faces.

When its time to indulge in muti-million dollar deals, he pushes hard, really hard. Arguments are a-dime-a-dozen within this board room, no acquisition is settled without a lengthy debate, without an analysis about the strength of the investment and of benefits of investing in real estate.

He is ruthless in collecting rent for his properties. Relations and relationships have no place in the world of business and no one is spared.

His strategy worked just fine and he always finished as a multi-millionaire, victorious and rich. Until yesterday. Yesterday he was forced to file for bankruptcy, by his own daughter-in-law.

That, my dear readers, is how appa plays Monopoly. It takes an experienced eye to distinguish between the seriousness with which he trades in shares and plays Monopoly. No matter who rolls the dice, he personally totals it, he follows each and every player's moves to make sure they are done legally and makes sure rent is paid in accordance with the rules before the next person rolls the dice, he is a one man army comprising investor, auditor and investment guru, extolling the virtues of investing in real estate.

Fans of 'Lage Raho Munnabhai' would be familiar with the following conversation between Lucky and the corrupt government servant (obviously not verbatim, but reproduced accurately!):

Lucky: Kitna mangta hai kaam khatam karne? (How much do you want to finish the job?)
Corrupt Government Servant: Rs 10 lakhs
Lucky: Rs 20 thousand
CGS: Rs 8 lakhs
Lucky: Rs 25 thousand
CGS: Final offer Rs 5 lakhs
Lucky: Great, na tera, na mera Rs 2.5 lakhs, the deal is done, moo meeta kar! (neither yours nor mine, Rs 2.5 lakhs, the deal is done, bring out the sweets).

I simply love this type of bargaining and here's the scene that took place between appa and amma yesterday over appa's aborted attempt to purchase Hong Kong from amma with hopes of building a hotel. The original price amma paid for Hong Kong was M$ 2.6m

Appa: How much do you want for Hong Kong?
Amma: I paid 2.6 million and since you will build a hotel if I sell it to you, I want atleast 8 million (this was reasonable considering I was her financial advisor and after looking at possible inflows to appa once he builds a hotel there, I suggested the figure of 8 million).
Appa: I will give you 3 million, nothing more
Amma: Nothing doing, I'll come down to maximum 6 million
Appa: I'm not paying more than 3.2 million, take it or leave it.
Amma: OK fine, I'm leaving it.

10 rounds later, appa was bankrupt because the rest of us built hotels at each of our places, my wife at Sydney, London and New York, amma at Rome, Shanghai and Vancouver and me at Montreal and Riga. He ended up staying at London quite a bit and with no sources of funds other than his salary run, his income could not keep up with his extravagant expenses and he had to be declared bankrupt!

Its a cruel world, 'init?

The things people do to meet deadlines...

Back when I worked in Dubai, we used to get deadlines that would make any self respecting human being blink a couple of times, shake the coconut from left to right and again from right to left, say "you must be stark raving mad if you expect me to finish the job in the time you're saying I should" and repeat the process all over again until reality sinks in.

Doing something for a protracted period of time makes a person get used to the activity, so it is that managers get used to dumping work and ignoring above mentioned gawking and us Senior Associates (Sr. Ass' for short, no really, no pun intended - were called that) would stop doing the gawking routine, accept reality for what it is and set about our tasks valiantly.

Occasionally, in extreme cases when, at 11PM, the deadline is for 8AM the next morning, we would use the ol' noodle and fill up a file with information that has, lets say, some scope for improvement on the quality front, just to buy time until the file comes flying back to us for not being "up to standard", only to rectify it with all the relevant information and submit a fresh file.

The biggest advantage of the above approach is hidden. By submitting something that has scope for improvement, you manage to pull one off on the unreasonable manager because he is going to go through all of it, only to have to go through it again, this time when he is under pressure. So if you disregard the abuse, it is good fun, atleast in hind-sight

All this, just to meet the deadline.

Why am I saying all this? Remember my promise of 3 posts a month? Today is 30 April and I've only had 3 in the kitty this month. Pulled a fast one on you didn't I?