Bad foods

So we got health warnings on Cigarette packets to deter people from smoking (I always thought that Singapore had the worst images, till I saw what Brazil shows!). The general intention is to warn people of the bad effects of smoking each time that they buy a packet and then psychologically induce them to reduce or quit smoking. Scientific evidence has indicated a higher probability of cancer with smoking.

There is substantial scientific evidence linking obesity to death. Also there is enough evidence linking sugar and (wrong type of) fats to higher incidence of obesity amongst individuals. Besides there is also enough evidence linking sodium in processed foods to cardiovascular diseases and kidney damage.

However it is interesting to note that none of our processed foods or fast food restaurants are mandated to carry any warning signs whatsoever (think Pizza and deep-fried patties in Burgers and those sugary colas that we drink to push them down our throat. And then don't forget the pastries and Indian sweets that we saviour). Ironically, though it is  mandatory to show nutrition facts labels on packaged foods in India not many manufacturers put them on their foods.

Considering that incidence of coronary heart disease in India is expected to increase many folds in the coming years and Indians too are progressively becoming obese, it is high time that we start warning people against consuming unhealthy foods. Foods high in bad fats, sugars and sodium should carry a health warning just like Cigarette packets do today.

Directions

Before the advent of online maps and smartphones we still could go to unknown places with ease thanks to good Samaritans sprinkled all over India. As long as we knew the general direction, the right city and some landmark we were good to go. You just hop into your car and then on your way stop and ask people.

Now, choosing the right person to ask for directions itself is an art. Without sounding biased, I generally keep away from well dressed people (yeah they are clueless), people who look like they don't belong to that area (for this, you have to remember Little Tiffany from Men-In-Black video provided below) and people too old to respond “ah?”. The best people to ask for directions are necessarily the roadside paan vendors and newspaper stalls. They generally not only know the area extremely well, but also they know the people (and their history as well). “Oh so you wanna meet the old uncle whose 3 daughters are in the States and his son is always in a state of intoxication?”, they ask. “I just saw him go home after running errands from the neighbouring shop. I think he bought some chips and a bottle of coke! At this age also he eats junk food!”, they provide additional information.

I once had a over zealous guy sit in my car and take me to a the place that I was looking for because he said “giving directions would be too complicated for you to understand!”. Learning from India, I once did the mistake of asking for directions in the US (yeah some 6 years ago). The guy was so rude that he asked me to strip naked and stand in the middle of the road so that the police pick me up and then they drop me at the right destination. it was a cultural learning for me to never ask for directions in that country again!

Now, I tend to walk a lot in the area where I live (not because I am health conscious, but because I have nothing much to do in the evenings and driving around in the traffic is not an option!). I get approached by a lot of clueless people looking for directions. Going by my explanation above that means – I am shabbily dressed and I look like a true native.

Now, most of the times I am pretty okay with my directions and I kinda guide people to the right place (or I think so). Today was one of those unlucky days when I actually guided a person to enter into a one-way lane and see him get stopped by a policeman. I am sure the guy must be very angry for me to have lead him there. So this is more of a guilt-laden blog post. Anyway, I have had my share of direction bloopers before in which I accidentally told people to take left when it was right etc. But I think today’s was the lamest.

Indian Swimming styles

I have been observing various types of swimmers in my community pool for well over a year now. That makes me our resident expert at “types of swimmers”. So, without further ado, I take this opportunity to present to you – swimming styles of India.

The splashing Sham – Splashing Shams think that swimming involves splashing water with their hands and feet. They try to emulate birds to generate lift on water. Such swimmers are entertaining to watch and they get exhausted before they reach the other end.

The whale breath Wasim – These swimmers take in the pool water along with air while they breathe. Then when they breathe out they spray water like whale blowholes. If you are around them, you shall be showered with it.

The blind Bhushan – These guys think that backstroke is the best form of swimming and that the community pool is their own (in Hindi – baap ka pool). So they casually perform backstroke and go anywhere they like without bothering about who is in which lane. If you bump into them they give the look – “Cant you see I own this pool? How dare you not meekly submit to my whims and fancies?”

The exercising Eknath – These kinds of swimmers think that the pool is meant for doing stretching exercises. You can see them right in the middle of the pool stretching their arms and legs and generally causing inconvenience to other swimmers who are trying to do laps. If you ask them to exercise at one end of the pool, be ready to get a piece of their mind about no peace left in this world.

The standing Santosh – This guy swims standing in water. He makes sure that his body is not at all streamlined so that he exerts maximum effort to propel ahead. Such people are seen doing a lap or two and then waiting for eternity at the corner to recover.

The wandering Wahab – This style consists of starting swimming in a lane and then traversing the entire pool like a snake and ending anywhere. Such kinds of swimmers make sure that no one swims near them. If you dare to – be ready to get hit hard by a hand or a leg and then be frowned upon for coming in their way.

And before girls get all offended because I didn’t use their names (or rather didn’t observe their swimming styles) here is my excuse – I have hardly seen any women swim in my pool. Maybe because there is a separate Woman’s timing in my pool and everyone goes at that time or maybe because even if someone turns up while I am there, if I “observe” her swimming, I will be labelled a creepy old uncle.

Before I end I know you wanna know which style I belong to. Well well, I have written about my style before; it’s the – desperate swimmer.

One Suit Wonders

Mumbai is generally a hot and humid place. That means our formal clothing doesn’t include a coat and a tie other than when the westerners come to meet us (and we have to pretend to be formal). Having had ourselves ruled by them for more than a century, we have adopted some of their lifestyle into ours. Now that includes – wearing suits for our wedding receptions.

So certain section of Mumbaikars I know (yeah statistically insignificant) buy suits only for 2 occasions in their lives – first if they do an MBA and later when they get married (Yes I come in the first category). What that generally means is – every time thereafter when we have an occasion to wear a suit, we just reuse the same one.

Now, I had been using my MBA suit every where till I realized that I have many occasions I need to wear one. Then, my count of suits went up to two. However I know of many people who continue using their one and only wedding suit everywhere they go. Every client visit and every formal meeting I see certain individuals in the same suit oblivious of the fact that everyone in the room knows that the suit that they are wearing was the one they bought for their wedding. For any normal human being, wedding is probably the most photographed event of their life (and probably the most sweaty – those videography lights are hot). So boost the economy. Get the money flowing. Expand your wardrobe, buy more suits. And please dry clean your wedding suit.

Issued in public interest by a hapless guy who had to sit through a meeting next to a smelly man in his 8 year old wedding suit.

Water Bottle Day

22nd March is World Water Day. Nice attempt at making us aware of the importance of water! Now, I decided to do my bit towards water, by doing a product review of my favorite water bottle of all times. Its called the Nalgene OTF.

I am very particular about my hydration gear. I don’t believe in reusing empty soda bottles to store water. Besides hygiene, those bottles are not meant to be reused. And I don’t like my water tasting like a cola. Considering that we are expected to drink close to 3 litres of water everyday, we better be serious about our hydration gear. Besides it also helps measure intake and that way meet daily water intake targets.

 

So what's so special about the bottle you ask? Well, well, it is what I would like to call – a “perfect” and well designed water bottle.

To begin with – it is made of Eastman Tritan copolyster. That makes it – BPA Free (better than Polycarbonate bottles), absolutely clear, durable, microwaveable, odor resistant and impact resistant. To top it all – it is “Made in USA” (Okay – I know that the cap is made in China, but at least the bottom is American). In consumer durables only two things that I have ever discovered to be made in USA are – Nalgene bottles and Corelle dinnerware.

It also has a wide temperature range resistance ( – 40 F to 212 F). I like to take my water a little warm. I have damaged many of my earlier bottles by pouring hot water into them. Not this one. That makes it easier to wash with warm water as well.

The cap with its loop shape and a nice lock that can be opened on-the-fly (hence OTF) makes it easy to carry around and to drink water with only one hand (no need to wait and unscrew cap). It also has a nifty metallic lock at the top that makes it leak proof. So I can casually keep it in my bag knowing that the bottle wont open by itself and spill water.

Finally, the spout is big enough to fill water into it without unscrewing the top. It is also big enough to drink water in a hurry without pouring water all over yourselves. And it is contoured in such a way that water falls correctly off the bottle without sipping on it. That keeps it hygienic and multiple people can share the bottle!

I think I can go on and on and this is not a paid advertisement. So that's my advice for the World Water Day. Hydrate yourself through a well made bottle.

Off-roads

Indians are good at planning. Some great planner figured out that we are going to shit and pee a lot more in the coming decades (before your ideas run wild – its just because of population explosion) and its time that we put in bigger underground sewage pipes to handle the load! So far so good.

Though the work started a long while ago, it was progressing at snail’s pace. However, with the financial year end approaching, the work has been now sped up (to remain in this year’s budget). So now almost the entire area around where I stay is dug up. It is dug so bad that whenever a vehicle passes by there is actually a dust cloud and we got mountains of gravel everywhere.

Technically we now only drive through rubble. All we have is uneven surfaces that we are expected to drive our vehicles on. The fun part is, at places where they have already started resurfacing the road with tar, it has just become more uneven. We no longer have any thing called a “road” left. Combined with our insane driving skills all of us now go off-road adventure riding in our own backyard.

To capitalize on this state of affairs a daring Indian bike manufacturer also managed to introduce India’s first “trans-roader”. On road, off road bike. If we look through the marketing crap it is essentially a made for Indian roads bike!

Now, my dear rich kids, imagine riding your Ferrari and Lamborghini on these roads and cry!

The 29th February Post

I wasn’t intending to write anything today, till it dawned on me that if I don't, I wont be able to write anything on a 29th February till the next leap year in 2016.

And how special was the day for me? Hmm, I got up late (these days I have been ignoring my alarm with alarming accuracy!) then I scrambled to get ready for office. Reached office a little later than usual only to find tonnes of work waiting for me. Paced myself the entire day hoping to leave office on time. However, (like always) had to stay late to finish all the work for today! Then drove home. Got stuck in traffic. Didn’t do anything rest of the evening and finally I am writing this blog post. So much for spending a special day that comes once every 4 years.

So I went down the nostalgia path to see what I was doing 4 years ago on the 29th. Apparently, it was my last working day in the land of dreams – USA. Life goes on. Its been 4 years since I left Uncle Sam’s land. I have become older (wiser? naah).

I hope we all have a very rocking 29th February 2016. If I am still blogging till then, we shall revisit this blog post. Till then – have fun and thank you for reading!

The Low Suger problem

Yes. Most Indians like sugar in their caffeinated drink. I am no exception. Though I have stopped taking sweet coffees, I still completely enjoy my tea with a lot of milk and a little-bit of sugar.

We had non-sweetened coffee machines in our campus before. That meant that we had a self-serve container for sugar kept beside the dispenser for people to add sugar to their own tastes. But as a part of cost cutting measures, a big bad vendor managed to win our contract this time around and in one single day, all the coffee machines were replaced by this big-bad vendor’s new slender machines.

Now I am a caffeine junky. On an average I drink 3-4 cups of coffee everyday. The new coffee machines are designed to dispense sweetened coffee only. The vendor’s default setting makes the drink so sweet that it actually tastes like coffee flavoured kheer.

Desperate to get my daily dose of caffeine I actually toured our entire facility to find a place where I could get decent coffee. I finally chanced upon a machine labelled “Low Suger” coffee. Happy to find coffee of the non-kheer variety I poured myself a cup of hot vending machine coffee only to find that it was as sweet as the other “High Suger” machines.

Now along with the cups that need to be washed, the high sugar coffee has actually forced me to cut down on my coffee drinking habits. And I am sure there will be more people on the campus who must have faced the same dilemma. So, not only are we collectively cutting down on our coffee expenses, but also we are unknowingly caring for the environment (lesser use of vending machines means lesser use of electricity and lesser washing of cups!).

If you think hard enough there is a positive side to everything in life!

My advice to Bollywood

I have always believed that my expectation from cinema is really low. I just want the movie to keep me engaged the entire duration. I don’t care about the plot, the acting, the set, the locations, songs or anything else you can think of. I completely enjoy senseless movies, nerve wracking action as well as movies that make me question my existence.

But, I still come across so many movies that can’t stand up to it. I went for a blockbuster Hindi movie yesterday. The first half till the intermission went quite okay. Then I bought my popcorn and the ordeal started. I am sure I showered my neighbours with quite a bit of popcorn while I went all “Nahi! Nahi!” in my seat, Hindi movie style! Fully knowing not a single director worth his name is ever going to read this blog post, I am still writing my advice to them. So if you are a menial like me, read on:

1. Not all Hindi movies have to beat the 2 hours 30 minutes time. If there is no storyline left, please don't stretch the movie using item numbers, twists that add nothing to the storyline, weddings, emotions and other useless stuff (If I were the director, I could have ended some of our movies in 15 minutes flat).
2. The helpless mom, the abused sister, and the best friend who is killed by the bad guy plots have been overdone. Please think about something different to make us feel bad about the good guy’s plight next time around.
3. If the bad guy is 6 times the good guy’s size and the good guy has got a gun, make him use it on the giant first. Once the good guy is sure the bullet has done its job, then he can try being a man and beating up the giant with his bare hands. I don’t get the obsession of Bollywood of making the petite good guy drop all his weapons and fight a giant when he could have easily had him in a shot (and saved the viewers 30 minutes of a useless fight in which both get beaten to pulp)
4. I know your dialogue writer is really good. But sometimes, its better to kill the bad guy first and then explain to us why the lead actor is so pissed off with him.
   

   When you have to shoot, shoot – don’t talk!
5. We are completely okay with senseless movies and stupid screenplay. But then make sure your entire movie is that way. We will happily watch it with popcorn. Please don’t make the cardinal mistake of having a serious movie with senseless screenplay, that just makes our popcorn taste bad and we writhe in our seats waiting for the movie to get over. 
   

   Yeah! – Andaz Apna Apna

The problem with experience

Most people, confuse “experience” with “number of years employed”. Wikitionary's definition of experience goes something like this - “Collection of events and/or activities from which an individual or group may gather knowledge, opinions, and skills”. The key is – experience contributes to knowledge, opinion or skills. Nowhere does experience indicate the number of years spent on job.

We can plot number of years employed against knowledge on a graph. As long as you are “employed” (even on bench, vacation or surfing) you continuously progress along the  X time axis. When one insists on experience, it is somehow assumed that experience = time spent on job (x=y) kind of an equation.

But is that really true? Did you learn or gain more knowledge in your last year than the year before? If you have been working for a long time already now, just sit back and think about the increase in your knowledge that happened in the first year of your job. Thereafter think about the increments every year.

If you have been doing the same job (but growing in time and consequently in positions) chances are, your knowledge level has more or less stabilised. What you are essential gaining on is the time axis.

Its funny when customers insist on having “experienced” consultants with an arbitrary number like 10+ years of industry experience without getting into the details of “what” that experience really is. I could have been doing a menial job in an “industry” for 10 years without gaining any incremental knowledge whatsoever.

The only way that you might be gaining knowledge out of your experience is if you have been profile hopping. This phenomenon occurs when you completely change your job profile every 2-3 years so that you have to actually learn completely new things to do your job. Most companies don’t encourage such kind of hopping, and if you have been lucky enough to do it, then you have “experience” in the true sense of the word!

So as recruiters or customers going forward, please don’t insist on experience in terms of number of years spent on job, but please look at what the person has done and “experienced”!