Gaga gugu

Have had the privilege of staying with a 1 year old for sometime and thought I give my expert opinion on the subject ;)

Even though the kid hasn’t gone beyond basic sounds that range from “waaaaah”, “dah dah dah” “na na” to the very complex “kot kot kot” (which do not make sense in most of the languages that we speak with him), we as adults have already started speaking to him like 2 year olds. So all “r”s are pronounced as “l”s and “s”s are pronounced as “sh”s. A hypothetical Girish Singh would now be called Gilish Shingh (I hope you get my point!).

Today, I am proposing a new corollary. It goes – “Kids speak like they do because adults do not speak like adults to them”. If you think of it, I have never seen an adult speak like an adult with a kid. We always try to sound cute and make funny noises and sounds to them (If you don’t believe me, try recording yourself when you speak to a toddler, and then later play it back!). At the time when they are trying to learn a new language they end up sounding the way they do cause we speak gibberish to them.

And if this blog post sounds without purpose and out-of-the blue for you, well it is! I have been staring at my screen for the last one hour thinking of something witty to write, and this is the only thing I could come up with!! Well, well, while I am writing I generally listen to something in the background (yeah music somehow spurts my creativity – or I like to think of it that way!). But lately I have realized that I am stuck in the late 90s as far as my music taste goes (Uncle tendencies!). To update myself with what's happening in the music scene now, I decided to listen to Lady Gaga. So rest of the hour was spent watching her videos than listening to her. Then I finally put this blog post together. Anyway, I ain’t putting any of her videos here. If you are a guy, I would highly recommend you go watch them as well. I would just put Christopher Walken’s (Don’t I love my uncles!) rendition of her Poker face here:

Christopher Walken - Poker Face

And if you don’t remember Christopher Walken, then you should see his Weapon of Choice dance for Fatboy Slim. So what is the lesson for today you ask? Next time when you write a blog post – do not pretend to listen to “new” music!

Scandal Management

In the past few months, the media has gone berserk covering sex scandals all around the world. There was a golfer, a footballer, a singer, a director, a spiritual guru, a talk show host, another TV personality and the list goes on. Now, personally I don’t really have an opinion about whether it is right or wrong or its ethical or forged. The point I am trying to make out here is sooner or later, every celebrity in this world will have to face a scandal, whether he likes it or not. This my dear, in turn is going to require an expert to handle such crisis. A new job which I would like to title – “Scandals Manager”. The person who comes in to help a fallen celebrity handle all the negative publicity that he/she has managed to garner. This professional will state his/her expertise to be – help you get out of the $hit that you got into – knowingly or unknowingly.

Money is power. And with great power comes responsibility (yeah I know Spiderman’s uncle said that!). By transitive closure ;) – With great (a lot of) money comes responsibility. And we as normal  human beings are not taught to be responsible. We “act” responsible only when we are in the spotlight.

I also would love to quote a blog post that I read about these scandals which said “It is part of the life cycle of a modern-day celebrity: Get famous, be adored, do something stupid, be scorned, apologize at a press conference, make a public show of penance, launch a comeback”.

I hereby “announce” that I am an expert in understanding such crisis. So here is Girish’s guide to celebrities in a mess. This shall serve as my resume and credentials for this role ;) !!

1) Tell it to the people who really matter to you, before the media tells them.

Yeah. If you are doing something wrong and you figure out that someone is gonna leak it, do so before that someone goes and leaks it out!

Here is a quick guide to an ideal confession. I really love the way this talk show host handled his scandal. not only did he come out in the open with it before the media went crazy over it. He made it sound so funny that most people were laughing when he confessed and apologized. If this was not enough, he also sued the guy who threatened to leak his scandal and managed to get him arrested. Its like having the cake, blowing the candles and eating it too!

2) Apologize only to the people you have hurt.

You don't owe anything to the world. I still am trying hard to figure out why a golfer in US apologized to me for his philandering. I am neither his wife, nor one of those women. My life in no way is affected by what he has done (well not really, I read a lot about his scandal online – but that was popcorn entertainment for me – I should thank him instead!)

Most celebrities don’t really owe us anything when they become celebrities. We expect all of them to be saints. And then they come out and apologize to the world to the fans and to everyone – it  sounds so fake and made-up.

And here is a quick guide on how to apologize only to the people who were affected by your scandal. The same guy again!

3) Have a conscience.

Well, I shouldn’t really be saying this. Cause if you really get a conscience, my job as a Scandals Manager is threatened. This statement is like an Oil company asking you to drive less or a Cigarette manufacturer telling you that smoking is injurious to health :) !!

4) Do not deny.

The more you try to deny the more your dark secrets get revealed. Investigative journalism makes a whole lot of money out of unearthing scandals because you like it or not we like to sling mud at our heroes.

If any celebrity who reads my blog needs a Scandals Manager, you know where to reach me :) !! Free services for first 10 callers!

How to be a good host?

So a good Singaporean friend of mine decided to go out for dinner with me last week. And since we always had non-Indian cuisine before, he felt a bit adventurous and asked me to treat him to my choice of Indian cuisine.

For people who are in the know, there are 2 kinds of Indian cuisines. The kind that you eat when you take non-Indians out with you (the Mango Lassi and Butter Chicken variety), and the other kind which you eat when you really crave Indian food. (That reminds me; heavenly food for me is – dried fish chutney – the way my mom makes it!)

Now since he was feeling a bit adventurous, I thought I might as well introduce him to what I was totally craving for, that day. So we feasted on Chettinad cuisine. The spicy Tamil variety. The kind which requires a constant flow of tissues and water. Being the mild Singaporean he is, he just could mumble “nice”, “nice” before he broke down into a river of tears and then started appreciating the Naan.

When a foreigner starts appreciating the Naan, you can guess for sure that the main course is out of his reach. But I think the devil had gotten into me that day. To finish our hot and spicy meal, I ordered for the Madras filter coffee. Its no latte, and it is sweet and has got milk. A hot drink after a spicy meal makes sure that you cry enough to make the person sitting on the table next to you pity your misery. My poor victim bottomed that as well.

As a final treat, I made him eat Paan. I think that was just too much for him. He finally pleaded to me that this is all he could take. I could see his face turning pink, as his throat turned numb because of eating all the betel nut pieces put so thoughtfully inside the paan. It was so bad that for close to half an hour the only thing he could do was ask me if he was gonna be alright!

He bid me good bye and left for his home half crying, half choking and generally feeling very miserable. On my way back, as I recalled the ordeal that I put him through, I kinda felt bad (I mean it). So this is a guilt laden blog to apologize for the pain and agony I put him through :) !!

Rebuilding temples

India is caught on the craze of rebuilding temples. Some of the most amazing temples that I visited as a kid have been rebuilt. I don’t get it. Most temples are architectural wonders of their times. They add to the awe of the premises. Rebuilding is destroying our heritage. I understand that the temples were built around the idols of the deity inside and people for all practical purposes go to pray to the deities inside the temples. But I guess, what adds to the sanctity of the temples is their ancient look and their architecture made by countless workers having toiled over years to achieve the perfection that we can derive out of machines in a minute today!

I understand most of them are dilapidated. But isn't it much better to restore them than rebuild? I know restoring would cost a lot more than rebuilding them from scratch, but I bet most big temples have enough money in their “trusts” to afford a restore!

16 boxes

I love this particular blog post by Seth Godin that he wrote more than a year ago. Its titled 16 boxes and he talks about how our career or business is not a single entity but is made up of so many different parts (that he refers to as boxes). I have always read this post when I am low so I thought I share it with you all as well.

I feel that just like our career or business, even our life is made up of several different interconnected parts. We have our health, wealth, family, job, children, friends, career aspirations, social circles, ambitions etc. These could all be titled as different boxes that make up our life. Now at any moment, not all boxes may be doing good at the same time. Things might be going wrong in some aspects. But life is not a boat which needs no leaks to float. Even if one of our boxes aren’t doing well, our entire life is not gonna sink. We can still sail around.

But when things actually go wrong, we always focus only on the boxes where things are going bad. We don’t even bother about all the other good boxes that we have in our life. I read somewhere that our primal instincts make us focus on things that are wrong, because when we as a species were still in the jungle hunting for food, not having something right was a matter of survival. However, today that’s not the case. We as a species however have not yet evolved to ignore things which are not in our control. We still continue to worry about the things that are going wrong and many a times end up affecting the other boxes which are perfectly normal till then. So next time when things go wrong with you, try thinking about all the other boxes in your life that are perfectly normal and don’t just focus on what is wrong with your life!

33rd Tooth

I have been blessed with a set of teeth that can make any dentist happy. I have undergone all sorts of dental treatments ranging from mundane cavity filling to tooth extractions, root canals, and other sorts of drilling, exploration and excavation activities. I have also been blessed with a medical condition that does not close my teeth completely (Next time you see me gazing at a girl with my mouth wide open, we just blame my teeth ;) !!).  Because of all this, I have spent so much time in my dentist’s chair that sometimes I feel the dentist is actually excavating for dinosaurs remains in my mouth (just in case!).

With so much time in the dentist’s chair, you can only imagine how I spend my time when he is playing with his tools inside my mouth. I imagine my dentist and I being crime fighters driving a high speed car (if you try hard enough, the drilling sound in your mouth at times does seem like the engine of a high revving sports car!). The occasional pain that I then get in my jaw is assumed to be a punch from a bad guy…

If your imagination is not in a position to run that wild, you can always count the number of times he blinks while he is excavating in your mouth. If you are really really bored, then you can count the number of hair in his nostrils. I bet I have observed him more closely than err .. umm .. even his wife! (Come on, she won’t be staring at him at such close quarters for 2-3 hours in a row!!)

The dentist and I share a very complicated relationship. Every time that I go to his clinic he gives me a warm welcome and I can see a twinkle in his eye with $ signs floating in them. Its funny though, that each time I am in excruciating dental pain, he is the first person that I think of (yeah, not God!). And though he has caused me more pain in my life than all my heart breaks, primary school punishments and sports injuries put together, each time that I am in dental pain I go to sit in his chair and go through more pain!

If all this pain was not enough, 2 years ago God decided to gift me with a 33rd tooth. For the technically minded its called – Supernumerary tooth. I actually had this extra tooth protruding out below my front teeth that prevented me from doing some Mandarin pronunciations (yeah for those of you who haven’t heard Chinese – its the most complicated language that I have ever heard and you need to be able to reach all corners of your mouth with your tongue to make all the sounds that they do! And for my Chinese speaking readers – yeah I know I am exaggerating!). This time around when I went to see the doctor, he was happy to see the tooth and promptly had it extracted. So now I am in pain for the last 2 hours and my tongue is heavy because of the anesthesia. I have been speaking like a 2 year old kid with a caffeine overdose so I thought I keep my mouth shut and blabber all that I had to say to you all in this blog post :) !!

Happy SAD

Hello all you love birds! Thought I remind you that along with your Valentine’s day today is also Singles Awareness Day (SAD). Reason for hapless singles to celebrate our solitude.

Now now, before you go all sad and start eating chocolates because you are single, hold on. Here is some advice from your favorite Uncle Girish:

For the single girls:

If you are a girl and you are single don’t worry. There are only 3 reasons why that must have happened:

1. You are just between two relationships. Wait till some guy comes and does the ceremonial dance. You can sit around and chat with your girlfriends till then.
2. A guy is desperately trying and you are clueless.
3. Your expectations are so high about your knight in shining armor that there is no one out there to fulfill all your criteria. God has stopped making guys like that (evolution)! You gotta lower your expectations right now!

For the single guys:

1. If you are young and naive then go read this. You can still develop a core competency and have a sustainable competitive advantage over the other guys. If you don’t understand what I just said, go get an MBA.  (Then you will be old and single and you still won’t understand what it means ;) )
2. If you are a guy my age and still single, don’t lose hope, it just means one thing – You suck! There is nothing you can do about it. You are destined to be single. So don’t sit and day dream. Move your butt and be useful to mankind by doing something good :)!

Roller Skating Uncle

Like India, elderly people in SIngapore are referred to as “Uncle” and “Aunty”. However, unlike India there is no term out here for the not-so-elderly but older than you people which we frequently use as “Bhaiya” (Brother) and “Bhabhi” (Sister-in-law) or “Didi” (Sister). So like you guessed right, everyone elder to you becomes an uncle. At my venerable age, I am an uncle for half the population of Singapore already.

So the venerable me decided to learn roller skating (Inline). I have had a lot of time to kill in the evenings and rather than spending it with my computer or roaming around aimlessly I thought I enrich myself with a new skill. And to prevent it from being just another new year resolution, I started my classes in the last week of December, to “technically” not make it a new year fad.

First day of class I reached the venue 10 minutes early, clad in my shorts and a t-shirt. I saw a lot of kids around me, but since it was being conducted in a park, I wondered the kids must be out to play while their adult parents learnt skating with me. To my horror however, when the instructor assembled the class I figured that most of my classmates were up to my knee, and the tall ones I could use as my walking stick. Most of them had ages in the single digits while some of the older ones had a very respectable pre-teen double digit age. I swallowed whatever little ego I had left and lined up for the class.

The first lesson was very simple, “Wear your skates and standup without falling down”. The instructor showed it to us, and the kids around me did it in a jiffy. I, however could barely lift my bum of the ground without wobbling away to glory. Like you guessed by now, I became the apple of everyone’s eye. From the instructor to my classmates, everyone paid attention to how I did it, and my every move was monitored by a dozen pair of eyes. And so was my rather clumsy fall. I bet no other kid in the history of the class had so much fun laughing at someone on the first day of the class! In no time, I had a fan following which cheered me saying “Uncle you can do it!”, “ Uncle don’t lose hope!” and  of course some smart half-pants tried to help me by giving strategic advice on “What I was doing wrong!'”. I guess criticism comes by birth, you don’t have to teach kids how to criticize!

Well, when you can’t do something that you desperately are trying to do, your natural reaction is to become grumpy. So grumpy I was, and angry I was with all those single-digit-year olds. But luckily, I didn’t give up. After many attempts and many falls I finally could catch up with them. That reminds me there are two ways to fall while skating – the graceful way – in which you decide to fall cause you figure you are out of control and land on your palms and knees safely, and – the clumsy way – in which you wobble and fall on your bum.

Now I have been learning to skate for over a month. I can now wobble around like a mannequin on skates and I am the grumpy-old-uncle-with-a-sour-bum who falls at the drop of a hat. If my classmates were any older they could have had a flourishing business by betting on how many minutes before I fall next!

Geek Humor

In my quest to be recognized as one amongst them and get baptized as a Geek, I have been trying a lot of things to attain tech-nirvana. Besides reading tech blogs all day long, I have also been reading geeky comics for a while now. So for all you people who are also on my path (to salvation!), here is a list of geekiest comics in the increasing order of their geekiness from your fellow wanna-be.

1. Dilbert – This is like the first comic a noob is supposed to read, understand and appreciate. If you don’t know Dilbert, or you don’t find it funny then you can’t even start your journey. Of course, Dilbert is not techie, its just office humor, but yeah you start here. Period.
2. Joy-of-tech – Lets face it. Being a techie without knowing or appreciating Apple is like being an Indian and not knowing who is Gandhi. So this is where I fail miserably. I still don’t own a single Apple product, and I don’t think I am that fascinated by the iPad either. Joy-of-tech is like a comic strip for Apple fan-boys (err.. sorry, I meant Apple fan-girls) and you have to read it to be there!

    

   This is where it starts getting tougher. My success rate with understanding the comics listed now onwards is still not 100%. All three comics use “alt attribute” on the image to convey more information about the joke. I do however love most of them, and the ones that I don’t get I ask Google :) !

3. Abstruse Goose – This is quite geeky and at times you need to know what is happening around in the world, along with a bit of mathematics, statistics, cryptography and anything else an average geek is supposed to know and enjoy!

4. Geek & Poke – This comic was a chance discovery, but I really love it a lot. Also it is amongst the most regularly updated geeky comics I read, and is really funny!

    

5. xkcd – This comic had to make this list. It was a no brainer. However, it is the most geekiest comic on my list, cause I am still not upto the level to understand all the jokes that this comic has. But persistence pays off, and one day I shall be there :) !!  I especially love the warning at the bottom of the comic which goes - “this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).”

   

Re-connect

I participated in a Business plan competition recently and one of the “optional” requirements (never figured out what that really means!) were to make a “video” explaining the idea! Explaining tech concepts in a 3 minute video is never easy. My friend suggested that I should get inspired by the Common-craft videos and make one like them.

If you gals ;) have never seen a common-craft video before, I suggest that you see this video explaining Twitter now..

Making a similar video was more difficult than I expected it to be. To start with, I had to come up with a story line which was easy to understand and at the same time gave you an idea of what the business idea (product) is all about. I had named my idea as “Re-connect”. Then to narrate the story line I had to make all those card paper cut-outs as props. And finally I had to take help from someone to move those props into the video as I narrated the story.

The tools that I used were:

1. My hand-held digital camera a Fujifilm Finepix f100fd.
2. A Gorillapod to hold my camera steady in between shots. The Gorillapod is very useful for mounting the camera at awkward angles.
3. Windows movie maker for editing and combining all the small video clips that I had taken
4. Audacity to do some basic sound editing and have background music in the clip

The entire 3:17 minute video took more than 12 hours in the making. I think less than 4 hours of it were spent in actually shooting the video. Rest of it was spent drawing the cut-outs, fiddling with my software and then finally editing the video!

And why am I putting it on my blog you ask? Well, the video proved to be too long for most people and many people walked out on me while watching it. We are an entire population of people with the Attention Deficit Disorder (That’s my way of consoling myself that the video wasn’t really boring :D !! ) So now I am putting the video out here so that my hard work doesn’t go waste :) !!

And if you are wondering why my hands look so good, well err .. umm they are girly hands. The person who helped me doesn’t want me to reveal her name on the blog post but if you dig around enough you can find her name (Elementary my dear Watson ;) !). The voice definitely belongs to me (you can hear the distinct bray at times!). And the “Re-connect” logo was used with permission from this blog.