The Hindu in this article today observed that

The Empowered Committee, headed by the former Chief Justice of India, A.S. Anand, was looking into all aspects regarding the safety of the dam

which makes me wonder, what do retired judges know about civil engineering?

ICE CREAM SANDWICH

Yippie!!! Android is open again, at least for the moment.

The National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) is contemplating relaxing the definition of creamy layer to include those with an annual income of less than 12 lakhs. Good for them. Who cares if the rich fill up all the reservations. After-all, the poor are unworthy of government favors, aren't they? The poor are incompetent, which is why they have remained poor. They don't deserve OBC quota at all. Sure the government is throwing them a few crumbs, but poor mongrels should be grateful and should not whine like rabid dogs. The country would be much better off eradicating the poor. Well, we should probably set up a ministry for eradication of stray dogs and poor people, as we know, we have fallen much behind on our plans on this. There should be a single ministry for both the tasks, as the strategies to be followed in both the tasks are not quite different.

M N Rao, of NCBC says that

affirmative action revolves around 'social discrimination' and economic advancement alone cannot determine social advancement.

Well, I think he erred a little in calculating the full meaning of this path-breaking hypothesis. I would suggest removing the income criteria on the ability to use OBC reservations. After all, don't our OBC industrialists and politicians need the reservations. They are socially backward as well, and they shall always remain so. Of course, we should never come up with a credible measure of measuring backwardness. But we have firmly established that income and social backwardness are not related. Perhaps we are a little wrong in that. We should probably amend the creamy layer rule and ONLY ALLOW people with income MORE THAN 1 crore a year to avail themselves of the OBC quota.

Well, its not surprising. At least it is consistent with the other views that this government seems to subscribe to: that a person in an urban area can live at Rs. 32 per day, and that BCCI and the F1 organizers should be exempt from tax. I must say that the government has very sound and consistent policies that don't conflict with each other.

/usr/games/fortune is a wonderful program. My $HOME/.profile file executes "/usr/games/fortune -a". Every time I open a terminal, it gives displays a nice little fortune. What it displayed this morning was especially interesting:

Although written many years ago, Lady Chatterley's Lover has just been
reissued by the Grove Press, and this pictorial account of the
day-to-day life of an English gamekeeper is full of considerable
interest to outdoor minded readers, as it contains many passages on
pheasant-raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin,
and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper.
Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous
material in order to discover and savour those sidelights on the
management of a midland shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinion
the book cannot take the place of J. R. Miller's "Practical Gamekeeping."
-- Ed Zern, "Field and Stream" (Nov. 1959)

Must have data packages for fortune:
fortunes-off : Offensive fortunes
fortune-spam : fortunes taken from SPAM messages

Commenting on one of the pics of a spider that I clicked, a dear friend asked what is it with me and with certain kinds of arthropods. Another dear friend commented that I am a bug, which is not far off the target. However, I think that arthropods, in-spite of their strong limbs and ability to fly, need some backing from me.
Photographing arthropods is fun. It is a very good pastime, and one can spend the entire day searching for insects, creeping up to them slowly, photographing them till Swift Tuttle hits Earth and never get bored. Part of the challenge lies in the fact that peering into a small display, one never realizes if one has nailed the insect or not, or is the insect's bottom in focus rather than the lovely eyes of the lady (which proves that eyes need not resemble a lake to be pretty, thereby shattering the box in which certain poets find themselves confined). Another part of the challenge is to creep up to them without disturbing them. Some insects are easier to creep up to, some are more difficult.
That being said, photographing insects is somewhat easier than other forms of photography. One doesn't have to think much about composition much; with such an interesting subject, any way a photo is clicked, it will always be appealing. Of course, masters in this art wouldn't agree with me, but I'm sure my readers will. They will also agree that the masters like Thomas Shahan get astounding results, and my results are nothing more than average in comparison to them, but nevertheless, the results I get are interesting enough. Photographing insects is also easier since they are much easier to find, there is more variety of insects on this planet than there are mammals or birds. Insects are much easier to approach than birds or other mammals, which makes insect photography an ideal candidate for amateurs like me. I would choose to leave the tigers and snow leopards to the pros.
The ubiquity of insects makes photographing them a real good pastime. The other day, I was waiting for a friend at the Hauz Khas metro station. My friend turned up half an hour late. I used the time to photograph a bug that was crawling on the granite wall at the sides of the staircase. The time waiting for him was well spent.
On a different note, macro photography enables me to look at things differently. a five millimeter spider can have eight legs, and four simple eyes. A dragonfly can have a pair of beautiful helmet-like compound eyes and a few simple eyes as well. A damselfly looks like a perfect Hollywood alien. The body of an ant is not smooth as it looks, but is full of hair. A mosquito has a very complex anatomy. Watching a bee grip a flower, and carry pollen in its pollen sack is exhilarating. In one week in my garden at home, I could spot five species of honeybees and bumble bees, one of them having blue bands. I spotted a species that looked like a bee but didn't have a sting, and later found out that the species is called a hoverfly. I educated myself about dragonflies, and spotted at least 6 different species of dragonflies (although I couldn't photograph all of them). I learnt about a species called a leafhopper. I found five kinds of caterpillars in my garden, and a greater number of species of butterfly.
Macro photography of insects really opens one's eyes to how beautiful nature can be, and how complex and beautiful each species is, even the tiniest ones. When one sees a cockroach creep out of the drain, it fills one with disgust. However, views can change, as my view changed after this photograph.
It is no wonder that Darwin was fascinated with beetles. If you still aren't convinced, I'll direct you to the master's photostream. If you still aren't convinced, you should watch these videos:

Could Empson be pulling a practical joke on the entire literary theory community when he wrote his famed Seven Types of Ambiguity? Could it be that he wanted to be a bit of Benjamin Franklin himself?

Sopat Ali

Sopat Ali, 2011

Sopat Ali is the best mechanic in Shillong, and perhaps the best mechanic in the whole of Meghalaya. He can take a Premiere Padmini apart down to the last screw, and put it back together without the help of a manual. My dad's 31 year old Padmini is still going strong thanks to Sopat Ali.

Sopat is about seventy-five now, but hardly looks more than sixty. Sopat tells my father many stories, some of which my father told me yesterday which I will recount in this post.

Sopat Ali's father was a bartender in Pinewood Hotel when the British were still in India, but in his lifetime, he never tasted a drop of alcohol. His father would bring empty bottles of liquor home. Sopat and his brothers would collect the lees in those bottles, mix them all together, sell the concoction and buy chana-choor with that money.

When the British left, they gifted his father a considerable amount of land. Sopat's brothers are all well established today. However, Sopat lives in a ramshackle wood-cabin. Sopat was employed as a foreman in the French Motor Works Company. When the company went bankrupt, Sopat was left unemployed. If Sopat had, then, opened his own garage, he would have been a rich man now, but Sopat was not very street-smart.

Sopat has been associated with our family since 1958. My uncle owned a Dodge bus, a Fiat taxi and a personal Chevrolet car. Sopat was always the man to turn to if anything went wrong.

Sopat is a very innovative person. The best masons and mechanics are always very innovative. If he had a better education, I have no doubt he would have been the pride of any research laboratory in India.

Once, Sopat was driving Dhiren Dutta, a lawyer and a family friend, from Itanagar to Shillong in his Standard 10 car. There was a puncture, and the spare wasn't in good shape. Sopat unscrewed the tyre, took the tube out, filled the tyre with twigs, leaves, branches and any other vegetation he could find, and then screwed it back. He drove the car with the same tyre for fourteen more kilometers till he could find a place where the tube could be repaired.

Another time, the same Standard 10 ran out of Mobil oil in the highway, and a garage was nowhere to be found. Sopat bought a small amount of mustard oil, and used it instead of Mobil oil till he reached the next garage.

Sopat was driving the same Standard 10 to Silchar once. He hit a pot-hole and badly damaged the engine oil pump. Sopat quickly realized that the pump will not be able to push Mobil oil into the engine, and decided to drown the engine in Mobil oil. Luckily, he was carrying a large supply of engine oil; he poured four litres of mobil oil into the engine. This work-around was enough to allow the car to be driven to a workshop in Silchar. The mechanic in Silchar was amazed at the ingenuity of the man.

The governor of Assam had a Buick 12 cylinder car which broke down once, and was taken to the French Motor Works at Assam. The mechanics there tried to fix it in vain. Finally, Sopat was summoned from Shillong at midnight. Sopat quickly spotted that the wiring of the twelve cylinders was incorrect, and fixed it. Sopat was given a baksheesh of one thousand rupees for fixing it. The sum was a big amount in the 1960s.

A couple of years ago, one of dad's friends was frustrated with his Maruti Omni. He had taken it to the workshop multiple times. The mechanics at the workshop changed various components, but still, it would not start. He told Sopat about his problems. Sopat tried to switch the engine on and immediately realized that the problem was a broken and blocked oil filter. He took out the oil filter out and discarded it. The engine responded. Dad's friend drove the car to the Maruti workshop to replace the oil filter. The mechanics at the workshop started telling him that the car would not start because there was no oil filter. Of course, he didn't buy their cock and bull story, and told them that the engine started because the oil filter was taken out, and the real problem was a blocked oil filter which the mechanics at the workshop could not figure out.

Sopat is a very honest man, honest and simple. He has simple desires. Now and then a cheap shirt, now and then a shoe. He is totally loyal to my father, and would leave everything aside to come to my father's aid if anything went wrong with his car. Sopat Ali reminds me of the poem by Henry Wotton called The Character of a Happy Life.

I wake up in the middle of the night, thirsty. I drink water. It doesn't quench my thirst. I drink more, and more, and more. But the thirst refuses to be quenched, like a wildfire refusing to be doused by the gallons of water dropped over it by a helicopter.
It finally dawns on me: I'm thirsty for real, but I'm drinking water in my dreams. I sigh, relieved. I decide to wake up, take pick up the bottle, and quench my thirst for real this time.

Mr. Ashish Gupta wrote an article titled "Why I don't support Anna Hazare" today. The original article can be found here.
Here is my response to him:


Mr. Gupta,

I beg to differ with most of what you have written in your article "Why I don't support Anna Hazare" in the 28th August 2011 issue of the Hindu.

You write:
> If Parliament is not reflecting and acting as per the interest
> of voters, we need to elect candidates and parties which will
> meet our aspirations and directions.
While you are partially correct, there is a theoretical flaw in any sort of government. If a constituency chooses a candidate, he belongs their elected representative, and he has the sole authority to speak for his electorate. After he is chosen, the candidate may choose not to voice the opinion of his electorate, rather voice his own opinions, which are different from that of an electorate. As of now, there is no system of check to ensure that what he voices are the opinions of his electorate, until the next elections.
Another problem in a country like India is that unless we achieve greater education levels (not literacy) people will always be swayed by demagogues.
And what about poverty levels and cash for votes?
And what about booth capturing.
While what you write sounds very spic and span, there are many other factors which are not taken into consideration by the theory of elected representation. (I'm not saying democracy is wrong, I'm only saying that democracy should have more checks.)

> We cannot destroy the Parliamentary system,
> just as we cannot destroy the judiciary, the rule of law,
> the bureaucracy and a free press.
No one asked for the parliamentary system to be destroyed. If the parliamentary system is not working, as clearly it is not, then it needs to be amended. Every once in a while, in a democracy, people do protest against their own parliament. Henry David Thoreau and Gandhi saw the people's rights to protest against their administrators as an essential component. Why, weren't there protests in France against their own government - the very country which started the idea of democracy? Didn't Martin Luther King protest?

> He also says the electorate do not know how to elect,
> that elections are a sham and that Parliament does
> not represent people.
I will agree with him. Illiteracy. Lack of education. Poverty. Cash for votes. Booth Capture. What else would you expect. I myself don't vote, because I can't find a single party that should have my vote. I am waiting for the day the null vote is implemented, and I'll start voting from that day.

> An imperfect democracy is far better than a perfect dictatorship.
Really? Nothing could be more divorced from the truth. A government is a means to keep the people happy, meet their aspirations, strive for their prosperity. The form of the government is second to the objectives. That being said, I'm not supporting dictatorship. I'm just saying that I will support any form of government that gives better results, be it a democracy, or a meritocracy or any other form. Democracy itself can be implemented differently. I'm all for the results, not the form of government.

> The claim of Anna and half a dozen people that they
> represent the Indian public is nothing but dictatorial.
How so? Millions of people expressed their solidarity with the movement, without any force. Millions of people attended his rallies, that too, without being bought, without any sort of monetary gains. Just look at the rallies BJP or Congress organize, you won't find half the number of people there, and the people who are there are there because they have been given a bottle of liquor or five hundred rupees. Yet, they are entitled to say that they represent the Indian public, but not Anna and his team. Is it because that they have won elections by getting 30% of the votes of people, (assuming 40% don't vote, and the other 30% is divided amongst 6 other parties, 30% is a winning margin).
Wasn't there a referendum in one constituency which showed that 85% of the people favour Anna. Why doesn't the government order a formal referendum organized by the EC then?
Of course, Mr. Sibal said that since 15% of the people didn't support Anna, he was was not a legitimate speaker for the people. Ironical.

> For many, it is a picnic, fun and getting a chance to be on national TV.
How wrong can you be?

> Some of these issues are recognised as desirable in the
> Directive Principles of our Constitution and have been
> dormant since 1950.
By design, they are "directive principles". The governments are free to disregard them, which they have done. It is our constitution baba. In 1950s people wrote a set of rules called the constitution. At that time they didn't know that it would not work. After 60 years, we have seen that it is not working. So what do we need to do, as a logical step? Figure out why it is not working, and write a new set of rules or modify the existing set of rules. But we are not going to do that. Because the constitution is a holy book like the bible or Koran, and modifying it would be blasphemy.
Of course, there are amendments once in a while. Drops of water in a ocean.

> What will happen when someone goes on a fast unto
> death at Jantar Mantar asking “total independence” for
> Kashmir and someone else sits on a similar fast demanding
> abolition of the special status given to Jammu and Kashmir?
The government didn't bow because of Anna's fast, but because of the immense support his movement had. In the hypothetical situation you cite, the government will not bother a dime. Look at Irom Sharmila Devi. Look at the fast by Baba Ramdev. In one case, the government hasn't bothered in 11 years. And in the second, they broke it up. Why? Because they lacked the scale of support Anna had. Irom had support in her state, and nowhere else in the country. Baba Ramdev had support from only a small section of his followers.
As far as the Kashmir issue is concerned, personally, I would support their independence. After-all, Mountbatten and Jinnah wanted Kashmir to go to Pakistan, as logically, it should have since it had an almost total Muslim population, which, by the principles of partition, should have gone to Pakistan. Hari Singh, at that time wanted to retain his independence, and didn't want to join with either India and Pakistan. It is only when Pakistan sent Pashtun tribals to conquer it, and Hari Singh, unwillingly agreed to the Indian presence in Kashmir, did this entire mess of a place unfold.

> Will the Jan Lokpal bill stop all corruption?
No one claims that it will stop all corruption, but even if it stops a large majority of them, it is worth a try. I think we are looking ahead at questions we are not prepared to answer till the bill is enforced.

> They are not going to complain to anyone.
You are assuming things.

> I believe a major part of the bribe given to government
> servants is in this category and a smaller part is where
> government servants harass and demand bribe.
You are talking about your personal experience as a government service, and they may or may not be the larger trend. I don't think you have established statistics here to claim anything in a national newspaper.

> Do not NGOs and private enterprises indulge in corruption?
Yes, but let us take one step at a time. Clean the government first, the funding agency first. I also have my opinions about where the corruption in NGOs start, but I'll not go into that, because I don't have established statistics to support my beliefs, so I'll keep them personal and not put them through in a public forum.

> Corruption has to be attacked with systemic changes,
> using information technology, reducing discretionary powers,
> reducing personal interface with government servants, and such measures.
Some of what you are saying is true. However, IT will not solve the problem.

> Dictatorial methods of agitation saying that
> “this is the bill, pass it or else” will not do.
Again, its not a dictatorial method. It is because that the bill is the will of the people, that Anna is able to make such statements. If the will of the people was not with him, and Anna made such a statement, the government wouldn't have given a dime about him. They would have treated him the way they treated Irom Sharmila Devi or Baba Ramdev.

> and he should now give Parliament and the government
> time to come up with their solution and keep up the
> awareness campaign till the next election.
Let the thieves draft the next anti-felony law. Hilarious.

> He should contest the next election with his
> followers or force the political parties to adopt his
> solution in their manifesto and then canvass for them.
Talk realistically.

Before concluding this harangue, I feel I must point you to read Gandhi's and Henry David Thoreau's views on the constitution, democracy and civil disobedience. Sometimes, the laws of the country and the constitution themselves become a problem, not the remedy. Yesterday, I saw the movie "V for Vendetta". I would highly recommend that movie. Nations can be wrong. Constitutions can be inadequate (I'm not saying that our constitution was written with malicious intent, I'm just saying that people writing a new constitution in 1950, for a newly independent nation, for a future which changed so soon, couldn't possibly have the foresight to write something which would be relevant in its entirety 60 years later. They would have had to be God to do that.).


Thanks and regards,
Rajbir Bhattacharjee

I haven't had the time to think and write something, however, I have been constantly reminded that my blog hasn't seen much activity recently. What post can I write without having a clear idea of what I am going to write? I had been to Shimla recently, and I clicked some interesting shots of doors and windows. This post is dedicated to portals.

Peeping through the windows of the dramatics society. I bet it must be grand inside.

The State Bank of India is fortified against robbery as a bank should be.

Shimla is Changing.

Rows of colourful windows. There is a skating rink inside this.

Is this a playschool? I was half tempted to enhance the colours on this photo in gimp to make the teddy bears more colourful, but I stayed away from any modification as I wanted the original colour of the bricks and the wood of the window to remain unchanged.

If one saw this balcony, one would think it is in Chandni Chowk, except that the moss would give it away. Somehow, this balcony didn't belong here.

How did the glass break?

Again, this looks like a Calcutta building, but it is Shimla.

I loved the broken wall.

And finally, the doors to reach the Lord are closed.

The first bob dylan song I loved was motorpsycho nitemare. I fell in love with him ever since. Here is the song for you.

Delhi has been rocking since the last two weeks; the rains along the comfortable temperatures and not-so-comfortable traffic jams it brings, is not the only contributor. The Kanwars have played the major role in making Delhi more animated and my journeys interesting. Every morning, on my way to office, I while my time watching the Kanwars, clad in saffron shorts and tees, walk, carrying their burden on their shoulders. Every evening, I'm greeted by trucks carrying loads of excited Kanwars returning from their pilgrimage, packed into trucks which are equipped with huge boom speakers and generators to power them, dancing all the way. The music they play is also interesting; one might even feel that the ecstatic Kanwars have created mini discos with lively music within the confines of each truck. However, if one listens carefully, one will notice that the music being played are Bhajans sung to the tune of Punjabi Dance music or romantic bollywood numbers. I may be an atheist, but this kind of music almost convinces me that God is omnipresent (thank God, it falls just short of convincing me).

While watching astronauts perform space walks, and repair the hubble telescope, I was wondering if astronauts still get excited about visiting other foreign countries? Strangely, of all the interviews of astronauts I have read, I never heard the interviewer ask this question. If it was me, this would be the first question I'd ask.

Some people, behind my back, complain that I try to be different and obnoxious at the same time.
Maybe it is true, but its not going to help them, because I love being obnoxious. Its just that I don't care if they like me, but I love it if they hate me.

This post is for Sh@s, someone whose blog I love to read. She complained that there are no updates on this blog, so this is for her, and I'll try to key a few random thoughts in while I still have access to a friend's computer.

Joan Baez, performing at Camp Casey, before singing her Where have all the people gone's and Diamonds and Rust's joked: "I get these brilliant ideas and then they fade from my mind, plus I can’t read any more."

It is much the same with me. I do get these ideas that seem brilliant when I get them, sometimes I follow them, mull over them, and then they don't seem so good. At other times, I just forget about them.

My problem isn't that I can't read though. My problem, is that I don't own a laptop, or a smartphone, and any post that I make has to be made during office hours from my office desktop, which is pretty limiting. Yes, I am a software engineer.

I take pictures with my camera, and don't find enough time to gimp them when I'm in office.

I subscribe to about thirty blogs, and just about manage to read them all on google reader.

Delhi is killing. I leave home at 7:30 in the morning, more often than not, the newspaper wouldn't have arrived by then. The days when the newspapers arrive, I have a not-so-boring time in the pot-tee. I remember my dad multitasking a lot in the pot-tee - he'd always go to the pot-tee with a radio in one hand, and his shaving equipment clutched in the other, and always managed to listen to the morning news and do his shaving - and we didn't have a western toilet then. That is what I call skill.

I try to avoid the evening traffic and leave office after 8. I reach home only by 9:30, and have just enough time to make myself a raita or some khichri for dinner. I'd love to get back to my music, and have been planning that for a long time. I'd love to get back to my work-outs - which have taken a back-seat since I shifted to Delhi - and have to find some way of doing that.

I love Delhi, I hate Delhi.

At this point, I can only hope that this hasn't sounded like rant. That was not my intention. Sh@s, I just want to tell you that, I want to write, but things don't always work out the way I want. Delhi is killing. After nine years in South India, it is difficult to get used to Delhi. :)

P.S. - @Sh@s, I'm writing this post on the last day of my vacation which I spent partly in Bangalore and partly in Vellore. Isn't it ironic?

Not In The Defence of Baba Ramdev

Baba Ramdev has been the object of ridicule, and has been blasted by both by politicians, and some sections of the society. I will not write this in post in his defence - while I do not subscribe to the allegations made by the congress, I myself do not agree with many of the thing the Baba says, or does - like dressing up as a woman to escape the cops - Mahatma Gandhi was never scared of the policemen when he started a civil disobedience movement. However, many of the allegations against Baba Ramdev don't apply to him alone, but various other authorities as well, but the only one targeted by everyone is the ridiculous baba.

The baba is a school dropout. Mr. Digvijay Singh and Mr. Kapil Sibal have been keen to point this out. Many journalists have also highlighted this issue; a report in one of the national dailies expressed the view that decisions like the Lokpal are best left to constitutional experts rather than uneducated babas who believe that allopathy can be rendered useless by yoga. But then aren't most of our elected MLAs and MPs - the so called guardians of our constitution - illeterate? Mr. Digvijay Singh himself is not highly educated, and while Mr. Kapil Sibal is educated enough, he behaves like a complete idiot.

The Baba's views on homosexuality has been the target of many write-ups, and while I don't subscribe to the Baba's views on homosexuality, I'd like to point out that the successive governments have done nothing to abolish to the sodomy law - and while the Delhi high court has decreed that the law is unconstitutional, it is still to be erased from paper.

Mr. Digvijay Singh has alleged that the Baba himself is corrupt and a fraud, and has a lot of black money and should be investigated - but this is a red herring - and is ridiculous as it comes from Mr. Digvijay Singh against whom there are many allegations of corruptions. In fact, the congress government has no moral authority to issue such a statement.

On the issue of black money, it is ironical that the congress government has shown little interest in pursuing the matter in-spite of repeated reprimands by the Supreme Court of India. In fact, the Swiss government is itself quite perplexed as to why it has not yet been approached by the Indian government to sign a DTAA, which is the first step in the direction of getting the money back to India.

All that the congress government has done by first sending a group of ministers to talk to the Baba to conduct under the table deals, and when they failed, to use force against the baba is to dig its own grave. They have not only trivialized the issue of such national importance but also given the right-wing saffronists an upper hand.

It will be interesting days ahead.

It is a cruel joke that a natural calamity or a disaster often stamps into people's minds what their teachers in school couldn't. A few years ago, the vocabulary of the world was enriched by a word: tsunami. In the last few years, many people became aware of a small island between the Atlantic Ocean and the Norwegian Sea.

An island famous for its volcanoes, it lives up to its name even today, as it reliably forces all international airline companies to shut shop every now and then, and shows man his true worth - that in front of nature, his best inventions are mere toys.

Iceland is an island formed completely out of volcanoes - the magma spewing from the Earth cooled and formed this rocky island of pristine beauty. Much of the early Earth must have looked like the Iceland of today. Over time, a thin layer of volcanic ash settled over the island. The rocks cracking with the expansion and contraction, together with the volcanic ash formed a thin crust of soil - a layer of cream on a tough cupcake. This thin crust caressed the plants growing in some areas of the island, and those places started to look like little replicas of paradise on Earth.

Some Vikings on one of their raiding tours would have noticed this uninhabited paradise, and sometime in 800AD, a few vikings started making this place their home. Here, they herded their cattle, and from here they raided richer lands like England. But life was never going to be easy on these islands. Windy, and with only a thin layer of soil which was rapidly leeched out of its fertility by the growing plants, they Vikings could never flourish here as they did in Mother Norway. But the were tough people, they survived. They survived the black death, they survived a smallpox epidemic which killed a third of their population, they survived the eruption of Laki Volcano which killed a fourth of their population and half their livestock.

From the middle ages, this raiding and herding community reinvented itself, and started supplying cod and crabs to most of Europe. Cod being a lucrative business, it had to take head on many bigger contenders like Britain - sometimes even having to skirmish them.

Iceland progressed from livestock to cod fishing, and then to becoming an banking success story. The per-capita income of the country, one of the banking capitals of Europe, touched some of the highest in the world, and this trend continued till the economic crash a couple of years ago. Thousands of Icelanders lost their jobs, and the country is now in turmoil. Never before has Iceland shook the world more than now - first with their banking system collapsing magnifying the effects of the depression, and then a series of volcanic eruptions bringing international airline transport to a standstill.

Although Iceland is seeing tough times now, they have battled greater crises than the current economic one it faces. Iceland's population has increased since the 1900s, with an annual growth of population varying from 10 to 20% per year; thanks to the cookies brought about by being a hub of European banking, they could manage to increase their population without having the natural resources to support them, and importing whatever was necessary. Iceland needs to revisit its history to draw lessons how their forefathers - the mighty and tough vikings - battled even harder wars against nature.

Chandni Chowk. Chitli Kabar bazaar. A fresh lassi followed by sights of a man selling posters of Osama with something written in Arabic - I too taken aback to even photograph this thing.
Sights in chronological order
- Cow hoofs for sale (Wonder who eats them)
- Goat brains
- Caravan of two elephants and two camels on the road

Stuck between a British boss, three hours spent in commute, vi, cscope, BBC Radio 3 online, and a desire to start (again) playing the Tabla and work out, I find no time to blog, and I think I truly, truly, more than ever before, need The Great Automatic Grammatizator. My motive is to throw bloggers like Guy Kawasaki out of business.