Waiting for the King to apologize, one can wait..rather a long wait

The statement comes from Duke of York who has just been announced the King (and who would henceforth be called King George the VI th ) and who knows that he needs help from his speech therapist to lead his people through his words.

They go and sit down in a private room. King starts: "I understand what you were trying to say Luke" and Luke responds: "I went about it the wrong way". The wrong way refers to the last conversation the King had with Luke when Luke prodded the king to take over the throne from his brother. Luke is very sure that the reason King came to him in the first place was because he knew that without being able to speak, he doesn't even have a slim chance of becoming a King someday. None the less, the king (Prince then) doesn't like being prodded by Luke on the matter and promptly asks him to buzz off.

So why am I writing something which is so easily accessible and well depicted in the movie. Because, there is a lesson for Luke's of the world:

a) When Lukes help the Kings, they don't do any favor but are letting the natural order unfold. Doesn't mean that Kings do not appreciate Lukes but Luke needs to know that King had the right to his service by statuette.

b) Lukes have to articulate it right to get things done from the Kings. If articulation is improper or things do not happen for the larger good, king is never at fault. Lukes around him are at fault for not getting the King to act in the right way. Also, if things don't go the right way, Kings would never apologize. So goes the newly minted king in the movie: "Waiting for the King to apologize, one can wait..rather a long wait"

c) Lukes would never be the Kings but do reserve the right to ask for favors as Lionel does in the movie and ultimately gets rewarded with Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1944.

Such are the lessons for those who are capable and who interact with those in power.

In An Absolut World, What Happens In One Country Doesn't Stay There..

Check out this latest controversy that has happened because of vodka ad made exclusively for Mexican audience. The marketing department of Absolut Vodka prepared an ad which shows the pre 1848 North America with states like California, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico shown in Mexican border. The attempt was pretty benign...a simple what if scenario...In an Absolut World( this is the punchline the company uses to communicate a dream world which you would find yourself in once you have had Absolut Vodka), Mexicans could again have the states they lost to US in 1848 war.

Now the problem came to the fore because these days, what happens in any part of the world doesn't stay there. What also inflamed the whole situation is the resentment which a lot of Americans feel with 12 million illegal immigrants from Mexico that live in parts of southwest as well as New York & New Jersey. Now it is accepted that Hispanic population has filled an important gap in the workforce especially in jobs that Americans do not want to do. Good examples of such industries are agriculture, meat packing, construction etc.

Prominent commentators like Samuel Huntington have talked about the way demography of certain states has been altered forever. It is now estimated that Hispanics form the majority of the population in at least 4 states. Besides demography, since Hispanics are almost all Catholics, it is also affecting the predominantly Protestant fabric of America. Hispanics today have become the dominant minority leaving Blacks behind. So many people already believe that this has in some way reverted the gains of the 1848 war back to Mexico, albeit, in a more nuanced way. This ad brought that feeling to the top.

It is to be seen what impact this would have on the sales of Absolut Vodka in the US but there are enough people on the right to make a substantial difference.

Who Won The RCA?

For those who are unaware of what RCA is, I don't really think this entry would make a lot of sense. In brief, those people who figure out that they would never go anywhere studying what was taught at IIT, RCA was the respite. The ultimate competition that completely consumed all the time you had.
I had the pleasure of this consumption for 4 years, first as a foot soldier and finally as the head of the student body from inside the deciding committee( or as they call it: The Prize Committee). Those were good heady days when all that mattered was winning the next event and cheering your heart out in sem hall or convo or SAC or wherever the event was. Cheering in itself helped accommodate those people, like me, who otherwise did not have a single talent to compete in some event.

Anyways, for a lot of us from 1997 to 2001, RCA was everything. We won it in all those years except in 2000 when a couple of professors with some students robbed it from us. We lost it in 2002 to a competing hostel called Vindy(full name is even more stinky!!) and then won it comfortably for the next 3 years. We have not been winning it for last two years, so when I found out that this year we won again, I was ecstatic. I was looking forward to going back to Kumaon and congratulating folks in person.
After I graduated in 2001, I had promised that I would not think about RCA again. This was pretty much the case for last 7 years except that during the time of February, an itch would start to at least know who won....just know...nothing more...no questions about which clubs we won and lost, no points, no judge related questions...nothing.

So I land up in Delhi and head straight to the hostel. To my indignance, I find out that we did win the RCA but shared it with Vindy. Now nothing could be more insulting. First reason for that is that there should be a difference between tigers and dogs. A tiger, which Kumaon always is, chooses what to eat and a dog, which I thought Vindy was and is, feeds on whatever people throw at him. Sharing RCA is like sharing a prize between two barking dogs and Kumaon is no dog. I was even more surprised to find out people from Kumaon who were so happy to have shared it. Now I don't know if I am being unreasonable or what, but sharing was always like losing( Check this pic of our victory in 2001 when it came closest to sharing with Vindy and Shivalik). Babars,Das, Pasus & Junejas of the world would concur.

So I am suggesting a simple thing. Kick out the RCA from our common room and give it to Vindy rather than holding on to it in 1st semester. At least, that would make people feel bad to win it alone next year. Tigers don't share their meals and Kumaon sure is a Tiger.

An Indian's Dilemma: To Wipe Or To Wash?

I am not sure if I really need to discuss this topic here but I guess I will take my chance...be personal and share a dilemma which a lot of us Indians and people from other eastern cultures face when they land in US. I washed all my life using my left hand!!! And then I landed in US where you really do not have the luxury unless you go out of your way trying to arrange for it in your toilet. So, like so many other things, I was wiping in less than one month. I am always intrigued by the origination of this difference. It seems that lesser industrialized nation tend to wash and more industrialized tend to wipe....what is the reason? I really don't know.

Lets quickly observe some things before this post descends into the domain of the gross:

I believe that if you are not planning to bathe for a prolonged period of time, it might be a better idea to wash for obvious reasons. Other reason could be you will save trees by not wiping. Then you will save yourself from scratch marks on your underwear in case of a bad wiping job(as Carry Bradshaw discovered to her horror in Sex & The City). Finally, a more scientific one which I found on the web:

"Incidence of colorectal cancer varies widely from country to country. Countries which are more industrialized(and hence wipe) like United States, Canada, UK, Western Europe, Australia have a much higher incidence of colorectal cancer compared to less industrialized parts of the world like Asia, Africa, and South America."

I am right now fully into wiping but I guess I am not sure if it is the right thing to do!!!

Found Hell On Earth

I read this story of Kashmir Singh today who was freed from a Pakistani jail after spending 35 years without a single visitor. Following the 1973 war between India and Pakistan, he was given a death sentence and had spent the last 35 years on the death row. He was a former Indian policeman and had become a trader of electronic goods and then was arrested in Rawalpindi for spying.

There are some good and bad aspects to this story. I recently noted in a post that resolution to big conflicts first need a decent dose of goodwill gestures. These gestures could be prisoner exchanges, movement of people across the border etc. The one example I quoted in the earlier post was the failure of Camp David summit to come up with a solution because people on the ground were not ready. A lot of people blame Yassir Arafat for that missed opportunity and many have noted that Palestine after its best efforts would never be able to get the amount of land that was offered in those negotiations personally supervised by Bill Clinton. I contend that there is more to the failure of those talks than just the instrangience of Arafat. The ground reality was that there was so much mistrust between Israelis and Palestinians that it was impossible to come up with a solution and sell it to people on the ground who would be affected by it. Not only Arafat but even Ehud Barak would have faced significant problems taking out settlements from some of the territories.

So coming back to this situation of Kashmir Singh. India and Pakistan have done a good job trying to lay the groundwork for an eventual settlement of the Kashmir issue. There have been prisoner exchanges, people can move across the border in Kashmir and meet their relatives on the other side, cricket is no more a battleground and contingents of parliamentarians and other sort of folks frequent often across the border. This presidential pardon for Kashmir Singh is another good news for the two countries. The bad news is that this took 35 years!!! Probably, it makes for a good case of Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied!!! Remember the Tolstoy story or the movie Shawshank Redemption?

Shawshank Redemption?

Latest numbers for prison population in US have come out and they are absolutely staggering. 1 in 100 adults in US is in jail. Demographically, 1 in 36 Hispanic and 1 in 15 Black adult is in prison. These numbers are higher than those in China and Russia, two countries where you can attribute the phenomenon to the still evolving political system...but to think that the biggest prisoner population would be in the most evolved democracy in the world surely needs some thought.

My take over this situation is definitely not definitive. Democracy is an interesting beast. Point in consideration: What does it take for everyone in the society to pursue freedom? The answer from this statistic seems to be that the goal of freedom for everyone also means denying it forcefully to those people who want to take away the freedom of others...

Or is it something else?

Respecting the Dead

I recently got an opportunity to visit some monuments in Washington DC. We started from Washington Monument, then walked over to Vietnam memorial. From there on, we went to the Lincoln memorial, the Korean Veteran War memorial. We finally finished at the Jefferson Memorial. There is something fascinating about visiting historic sites....something very sobering.

I read a book sometime back called "Faith Based Diplomacy". In this book, the author Douglas Johnston contended that faith, rather than avoiding it, should be used in conflict resolution. He stresses that all religions have quite a few common tenets and those could be used as starting point for negotiations between warring parties. One of these tenets is respect for the dead. For the reason of respect or fear for the wandering souls near burial sites or memorials, memorials can become oasis of peace in conflict ridden areas. In the Middle East, author suggests some sites including Deir Yassin, the corridor of the forced march from Ramallah in 1948 where a number of Palestinian villagers were massacred by Jewish irregulars and the site of Yeshiva where numerous Jewish students were slaughtered in 1929. My personal experience at burial sites or war memorials/monuments has been unequivocal reverence irrespective of the views I share about the events surrounding the memorial. It is no wonder that despite all the protests that happen in heated DC politics and these anti-war days, these memorials continue to remind us of the souls departed.

So I ended up soaking a lot of American history last week.DC area is flush with such sites. In fact, one of my colleague in Arlington office, Julie Holm, played the role of a wonderful host and took us around explaining the history behind every memorial. In fact, she does something very interesting. Leveraging on the immense history DC area has, she records weekly audio travelcasts with her husband Mark. You can go to their site http://washingtontravelcast.com to check out some of these. If you are planning to travel to any place of historical eminence in DC, there are good chances that you will find a travelcast on this site. Download it, put it on your iPod, plug in your earphones and learn some great stuff while walking.

Jazz On A Tuesday Night In Detroit

I was in Detroit a couple of weeks back. The highlight of that visit was a trip to the area around 8 mile road. Those of you who are not familiar with this seemingly innocuous name, this is the road around which the action happens in Eminem's movie "8 mile". Detroit has a long music history made famous by Motown Records, Marvin Gayes, Eminems and Kid Rocks of the world.

Wikipedia has the following description for the 8 mile road:
"Eight Mile Road is a road which forms the boundary between predominantly African American Detroit, Michigan and the city's mostly white northern suburbs. The term "8 Mile" therefore represents a barrier that is difficult to cross."
And really, when you go there, you can feel it. I can vouch for it because I have stayed in parts of LA which are exactly like this. Places which have a lot of history, culture but that have gone through changes because of changing demography & economic situation of people living in that area.

Detroit has consistently lost population in the last decade. Once it used to be the 4th largest city in US but now it is ranked at 11th. Manufacturing jobs in auto industry have slowly disappeared and you can see the effects. From just one look when your plan is landing, you can see that this place is definitely not rich.

So the first time we go in the 8 mile area, we are not sure if we want to spend too much time there. But as is true with any thing forbidden, we end up at the place a week later. Still, we are not sure about parking on the street...so we go out of our way to make sure that we park the car at a proper parking...so Detroitish!!!

It is Tuesday night and we end up in a Jazz bar called Baker's Keyboard Lounge. The Alma Smith trio are playing and I can't tell you how good or bad they are. But one thing is for sure...they sound phenomenal at that time. Probably because we are tired after a hard days work. Or probably the food( Baked Potatoes, Broccoli, Cheese & Sour Cream) is so bad that Music is the only thing that can keep me alive!! I am seated at an interesting angle from the stage because I can only see the back of the singer. I am sure she is female and her voice is incredible. I am beginning to assume that she will be young as well...turns out, she is not. But really, if I had seen an old woman like her not knowing that she can sing as well, nothing could have been more ordinary. But music I guess has that effect. It really brings out a completely different aspect of beauty. She sings some good numbers...the way Jazz should be....slow, smooth...something that will make you sleep. We hear the music for another one hour and then head back.

By the way, food in Detroit is very good specially if you like Mediterranean food. We actually end up going twice to this restaurant called LaSheesh on 12 mile road. I have never had a Garlic Chutney so plain, so simple and still so tasteful with Pita bread before..

Jared Diamond, Domesticated Animals and Arranged Marriages

Jared Diamond's fascinating book Guns, Germs and Steel has a chapter called Zebras and Unhappy Marriages. He argues that though, it would seem, a lot of mammals qualify for getting domesticated, very few ended up being that way at least with the weight exceeding 100 pounds. The reason, he argues, is that for any animal to be domesticated at least six factors need to be hold true:

a) Diet: It would not make much sense to domesticate a carnivore species because a human would rather consumer 10,000 pounds of a herbivore than to feed it to an animal and get 1000 pounds of this carnivore.
b) Growth Rate: Slow growth rates would defeat the basic purpose of domestication( which is breed and get dairy or meat products fast)...so this rules out elephants and chimps.
c) Problem of Captive Breeding: Some animals don't like to have sex in the glare of their human master or other companions in the stable.
d) Nasty Disposition: Animals like Zebras hurt more zookeepers every year than lions!!
e) Tendency to Panic: Deers tend to panic at the slightest change in their surroundings
f) Social Structure

So, generally speaking, for an animal to be domesticated, it has to be a herbivore, needs to grow fast, should not mind mating at any time( or place!!), should be benign towards humans and needs to be comfortable with humans. It also needs to be comfortable being part of a hierarchy and should be ready to accept a human as the head of that structure.


Domesticating is a sort of marriage between a human and an animal. Arranged marriages presents an interesting variant of this domestication phenomenon( I am solely trying to draw some parallels here and in no way suggesting that those who are looking to get married through arranged marriage are engaging in any sort of domestication exercise!!). While normal marriage between two human beings might require matching of a variety of factors like physical attraction, similarity in thought and intellectual capacity, same religion/caste/class, in-laws compatibility, do you like( or hate) George Bush and whether you prefer eating a boiled egg from the sharp or the rounded side.Arranged marriage introduces a further constraint. You, or your parents or whoever is responsible for getting you married if you have failed to find a partner for yourself, now are trying to make these things happen rather than letting them happen naturally( which seems to be the case in love marriage).

The variety of factors discussed above to make a marriage work along with the fact that it is arranged should obviously restrict the number of possible matches. In case of large mammals, humans have been able to find only 14 matches( 5 main ones being Sheep, Goat, Cow, Pigs , Horses and 9 minor ones) to date...imagine, just 14 matches that have stood the test of time. What are the chances of finding an ideal match in an arranged marriage with more than 6 factors that have to go right?

Marvin Gaye and The Star Spangled Banner

Very soon, I will be finishing my two years of stay in the US and very recently I discovered two things: The Star Spangled Banner and Marvin Gaye.

Till a couple of weeks back, I was not aware of the Star Spangled Banner and its lyrics. As someone who has made a very deliberate effort to understand American culture, I am not sure how I took so much time to know what the national anthem of America was. It was created in 1814 by Francis Scott Key and was made the national anthem by a congressional resolution in 1931. Although it has 4 stanzas, only 1st one is sung in general.

My interest in The Star Spangled Banner initiated after I listened to its famous rendition by Marvin Gaye in 1983 NBA All Star Game( Bravo Youtube!! One professor called Dennis Rook is talking about Marvin Gaye in the class and reminiscing that day when Marvin Gaye sung the Star Spangled Banner and a student says:" Probably, the video will be on Youtube". If I ever had any doubts that Youtube will soon be dead with all the law suits, this was one more proof that the real strength of the site is this kind of lost content!!) In fact, I discovered Marvin also very recently. As one of the original voices at Motown records, Marvin was a master of soul and R&B. While tracks like Whats Going On were about social issues there were others like Sexual Healing which were about the simple aching of getting down with his woman!!! His father, who was a priest and with whom he was living in 1984, killed him.

Coming back to the national anthem that he sung in his distinct style in 1983... Star Spangled Banner is incredibly difficult to sing and people before Marvin had tried to do different things with it. Jimi Hendrix was booed at Woodstock for playing it on guitar. Even for Marvin's version, and I find it absolutely fascinating, there seems to be a divided opinion. Stevie Wonder thinks that Marvin got no television after that performance till he died because "Because all the network executives couldn't handle a black man singing a sexy soul version of the National Anthem". Others seem to think that they have never heard anything more wonderfully done and only Marvin could have done it so beautifully.

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

The need for http://kapigup.blogspot.com

This blog has become a wonderful expression of things that I like to think about in my leisure time. It has been a constant companion like no one else in my first stay outside India. Now that I am finishing up school in one week, someone emailed me this picture and frankly, nothing captures my passion for my blog better than this. I have stayed hungry for things that are news worthy or deserve to be news worthy and I will continue to express myself on this page.

Green: The New Red, White & Blue

This is the name of the article which Thomas Friedman wrote at the start of last year and was published in New York Times(http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org/news/news_detail.cfm?id=48) . Let me first make the words of this title clear to the reader: Red White & Blue are the colors from which American flag is made and Friedman is this article contended that Green Energy will define what America will be in the future.

Like his earlier initiative called The World is Flat, it can be said that Friedman has sometimes trivialised a lot of things in this latest push as well. But what is important is the fact that when you read this article and watch his documentary called Addicted to Oil, you know very clearly what he is talking about. The strength of the argument lies in in its simplicity and its timing. He has a very nice way of coining terms for the issues involved and it works. Ask majority of Americans about what their opinion is about globalization and you would find that some it might have been shaped by the World is Flat. Same goes for this article and the documentary on Discovery Channel. Friedman is pushing an important issue to forefront of public debate here in America.

Today, green, or alternative, energy is important for America from two perspectives:

1) Petrodollars feed the rogues regimes that fuel the dictators and harbor the terrorists. Friedman rightly observes that every time the price of oil has gone up in last 50 years, democracy levels in middle east and other parts of the world where oil is found has gone down. Look around at regimes like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan, Algeria, Nigeria, Venezuela and it doesn't take much effort to understand why they are shouting at the top of their voices. You can systematically map the ascent of Putin and his iron hand policies to the price of oil. America and countries like China & India are addicted to oil and when oil is bought on international markets, it ultimately ends up in the pockets of rogue regimes. The day we have an alternative energy source, these regimes would find it difficult to fund their activities because they will first have to feed their people. None of these countries is capable of even producing a safety pin and it won't be long when the need for change would be really felt.

2) America has lost its moral leadership with a very unpopular war in last 4 years. If America can lead the world towards innovation in green technologies and become the frag bearer for Kyoto Protocol, the world would be truly indebted. Today, America has the monetary and the intellectual capital to produce a massive breakthrough in this space. This issue needs America's leadership and America desperately needs issues through which it can regain its lost leadership. What is needed is the push from government of the size seen during Manhattan Project and Apollo Mission to the Moon. Complement this with tax breaks for fewer carbon missions and already existing private capital in this space, and we are not very far away from a massive change.

Using a gas guzzling Hummer is not macho and is definitely not American for the reasons listed above. Green is the New Red, White & Blue.

Finally, Some Gunshots..

Finally, I got to hear some gunshots on the street where my apartment is...and for sure, it was a reminder that I live in downtown Los Angeles. At least a dozen people have died in gang related violence in this year within 2 mile radius of my place but somehow I had started to believe that I was immune to it...till it happened today.

Everyone was safe but I did see folks running for cover. I was planning to go out to get some food but then I decided to stay home and cook something. I think I have done a great job till now of understanding that in downtown, you don't go out after it gets dark. But when you hear gunshots in the afternoon, then you begin to think....you begin to question the frameworks which you have built for yourself..and that is what I am doing right now and I am not sure if I have a solution. Believe me, it is fun to know that you stay within 30 miles of Pamela Anderson but it is no fun to hear gunshots in broad day light. It helps keep things real but I guess sometimes its better to leave the reality behind.

"Finding x"

I recently came across a blog entry from a friend called Ritesh Dahiya( by the way, he has an interesting blog...check that out on http://riteshdahiya.blogspot.com. He has some interesting observations and he also knows how to link youtube videos to his entries!!!). I hope Ritesh won;t mind copying a fantastic picture.Also, I will admit right now that I have never shied away from copying good things around me.

Coming back to the point, there was this very interesting picture on Ritesh's blog. It comes from some exam where the teacher asked the student to find out x given the value of base and altitude. I had a good hearty laugh but then I began to think a little bit. I have been convinced from my 1st semester at IIT, which was close to 10 years back, that I was not going to be an engineer. And there were so many things which were obvious to other people but which I could never understand. Structural Engineering and Engineering Drawing were good examples. MBA, at least, makes so much sense and generates certain amount of interest from deep within. Bottom line, I have had my "Find x" moments and when I laugh at them, it is as much directed towards myself as it is on any one else.

There is another interesting aspect to this problem. I remember an incident which happened with a good friend, Bhupesh Gupta, at IIT in one of the humanities exam. The class was called Moral Literacy and Moral Choices and professor was V.Sanil. One question in the exam asked students to visualise a situation where you are standing outside a lift, it is completely full and you have to reach the 7th floor otherwise you will miss an important class. The question was " How would you convince one person to come out so that you can go in?". Well, Bhupesh wrote down very peacefully that he would say to people inside the lift that there is a bomb on the 7th floor and he needs to go up to diffuse it. Bhupesh was very happy when he came back to the hostel after giving the exam. The question was worth 50% of the exam.

Professor read the answer, wrote " Oh really" at the end of it and then gave a perfect zero to Bhupesh. Well, to some extent professor was right. Bhupesh was supposed to explain how he would approach the problem, find out who are showing signs of getting persuaded and then concentrate his efforts on them. BUT, as in the "finding x" thingy, Bhupesh is also right in some way. Considering the question without any prior context, both Bhupesh and the guy who found x are right. They did answer the question right, just that expectation required understanding the context in which the question was set.

Defining Truthiness

Last week the American Dialect Society named "Truthiness" the word of the year. This word was invented by Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central last October and understandably, he was livid when Associated Press did not credit him with the invention. The closest reference for a word close to Truthiness is Truthy but it does not really capture the essence of Colbert's Truthiness.

According to Colbert, Truthiness means truth that is not held back by facts. You don't look up the meaning of Truthiness in a book, you look it up in your gut. People have always found it difficult to describe the truth propagated by anchors on Fox News like Bill O'Reilly, Shawn Hannity etc. but since the invention of Truthiness by Colbert, the job has become very easy. And to take away the credit of an invention of this magnitude definitely deserves outrage.

I believe that Colbert invented Truthiness because I looked up in my gut and it told me that Colbert was speaking the truth!!

Do We Need Dog?

Dwayne "Dog" Chapman is a big bounty hunter. For those of you who haven't heard this term before, bounty hunters are those people who go after criminals who have a bounty on their head. Dog is now the greatest bounty hunter in the world and is credited with more than 6,000 captures in 20 years. He was himself a convicted felon for a first degree murder but now he stands for the redemption of those on the run.!!

Hector Gonzalez, a drug peddler on the run talked about his experience about being duped by Dog:
""I honestly believed it was the feds who woke me up in the middle of the night. "All right, Gonzalez," growled a voice over a bullhorn. "You're surrounded. Come out with your hands up!"With lights streaming in from all sides of the cabin, Gonzalez thought he'd do the only sensible thing and surrender. But after being cuffed and placed in the back seat, he didn't expect to hear these 11 words:"All right kids, you can come out from behind the bushes!"Arrrh! Gonzalez screams. They're just kids! "I'm gonna kill you , mother f --" he shouts, glaring at his captor. "I'm gonna kill you when I get out!""

This time, the Dog finds himself in trouble. He was after Andrew Luster, an on the run fugitive on trial for sexual assault crimes in California. Dog caught him in 2003 in Mexico and got him back to US. Luster, who also happens to be the heir of Max Factor, is now serving 23 years in prison. This arrest inspired the show called "Dog, The Bounty Hunter" on A&E Network which went on air in 2004. The problem is that Mexican government decided to pursue charges for "deprivation of liberty" against the Dog. The case is on in Mexico to decide whether he should be extradited there to face charges.

My question is primarily this: What role does a bounty hunter play in a society where there are official law keepers? Do we need self motivated( for whatever reason) individuals to carry out the job or even help policemen in such an active fashion? Frankly, I am not sure. I am also not sure if he is doing something wrong. I just become slightly eerie when different players in the society start stretching their roles despite all the good intentions. We know what happens when the government does it, can Dog be an example of what happens when individuals do it?

Steve Irwin & Probability of Independent Events

I have always believed that when you consistently do dangerous things, the probability of something happening to you keeps on increasing every day. I know a lot of you are going to say that every time you do something dangerous, it is an independent event and hence what I am saying is not true. My gut tells me that what I am thinking is true. I'll substantiate my response by quoting what Stepehen Colbert said at the White House Corps Dinner this year" Do you know there are more nerves ending in your gut than your head? You can look it up...I know some of you would say, I did look it up and that's not true. Well, that's because you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut. I did and my gut tells me, that's how our nervous system works"
So every time you don't get mugged in downtown LA when you are all alone in the dark, the probability of getting mugged the next time just increases. My gut tells me this is true and that's why I stay home at nights!!

Coming to Steve Irwin or someone better known as Crocodile Hunter...everytime I saw him on television, I would wonder not only at the audacity of his actions but also at their sheer sustainability. I remember once when he did a show on African Lions and almost got slapped in the face for tickling the giant mammal. And we are not talking about a normal human slap but a slap with probably a force of close to 150-200 pounds....enough to crush your skull completely out of proportions. I don't know how many of you felt that it was a matter of time that something would happen someday to this huge conservationist. No matter how much all of us liked him and his shows, there was always that sinking feeling...its coming...something someday is going to happen. It did happen a few days back. The world lost a great fan of nature. My gut always told me that something is going to happen and theory of independent events said something else...what do you say?

..still searching for El Dorado!!

I went to listen to George Soros in downtown today. The event was full of the richest people of LA. If Titanic at one point of time was carrying the highest net worth individuals of Europe, a similar congregation was there today at the Omni Los Angeles Hotel. All had come to hear the biggest of them all---the king of all hedge fund kings--hoping to get that small tip which would make them the next one to earn 950 million dollars in a day by hedging against a currency.

Alas!! The Soros of modern world has moved on...he does not seem to care much about a billion here or there...at least in public. To all the bankers present in the room, Soros gave a 60 minute talk on contemporary politics. The scene was first of wait, then slight anxiety and then utter disappointment. That killer tip to make loads of money never came. He hinted that dollar might be weak in coming years but who doesn't know that!! Finally, these gold diggers slowly started to slip away..No one gets to waste their time..not even Soros. It doesn't matter that he was talking about something which is also very important. Bottom line is Debits on the left and Credits on the right...and if anyone doesn't talk about that, it doesn't add to the search of even more gold..and the never ending search for El Dorado continues....

A Job Description..

Two years back, I read a book from Shashi Warrier called The Hangman's Journal. One incident from that book keeps visiting me again and again. The Hangman of the novel has had an unusually hectic week. Though his usual average is a hanging every 3 months, this week just happened to have three hangings on consequent days. After the second hanging, he came home and found out that his pregnant wife had delivered. His hand goes out to touch the baby but suddenly stops. A thought suddenly strikes him," What if this baby is the person I hanged a few hours back".

Despite the very irrelevant fact that this incident is rooted in the Hindu belief of rebirth, what is particularly striking is the kind of situation in which this hangman finds himself. Which job in the world would push you in such a situation? And still, someone has to do the job . Since its that time of the year when job descriptions are flying around, lets try and write a job description to hire such a guy:

"Positioning the knot under the prisoner's ear is the most important part of the job. Getting the positioning exactly right and making sure that there's not a quiver from the rope except for that little jerk at the drop,when the neck breaks.Basic knowledge of geometry and Newton's law of Gravity would be an added bonus.

Should have demonstrated experience in shutting out difficult memories and checking the flow of sadness in toughest circumstances. Should be specially adept at facing the eyes of a man about to die.

The role would be of an individual contributor and expected work hours for the full year would not, in normal circumstances, exceed 100 hours( including making the noose and setting up other equipments).

Compensation and other benefits are amongst the best and fully negotiable. No prior work experience required."

Well, it would be really interesting to see how many people would apply despite the most excruciating circumstances they might be facing because of the lack of a decent livelihood. None the less, it definitely raises questions about all of us and the "civilized" societies that we have created around us,which still requires someone to do such a job. The job is to deliver the ultimate justice but who would deliver justice to this guy??

LAPD, "To Protect and To Serve"

One more first time experience here in Los Angeles.... The place where I stay is downtown Los Angeles and this downtown has a nasty reputation. For three weeks, one guy has been going around with a gun and mugging people. As a result, I end up inside my home before it gets dark at around 7:30p.m.

First, heads up. LAPD stands for Los Angeles Police Department. Last night at around 12 at night, we heard people fighting outside. From the heated conversation, it seemed as if the mugger this time came across a real bad victim. I looked out of the window. There was a white guy who had his T Shirt torn and he was shouting at some other guy who came in a taxi.

Within five minutes, six patrol vans of LAPD were outside the house next door where the fight was happening. Now, don't expect that I'll tell you that the 12 policemen who came quickly took their positions, and started shouting for everyone to crouch low. This is no Die Hard or Phone Booth sequence. Life, as always, is much less dramatic than Hollywood movies. But it was a good fun to see nicely dressed American policemen( in complete contrast to our LATHI wielding sub inspectors and hawaldars back in India) and the pace with which they came and went.

I also found out what exactly happened. This white guy came in a taxi with his girl friend, had some confusion regarding the payments...and then found the taxi driver inside his house. He got scared, started shouting and to an outsider like me, it was like Mr. Mugger is,finally, next door.