Abhinav Agarwal

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

The Brethren, The Partner by John Grisham

The Brethren by John Grisham (Flipkart)

3 stars

Finished reading Grisham's The Brethren last weekend, and The Partner this Sunday night.
The Partner is very much a darker and more somber read than The Brethren. The Brethren actually makes you feel that Grisham wrote this over a lazy weekend. There is no real climax to the novel - it kind of peters to a tame and predicable ending, without any big surprises or twists at the end. The three judges (brethren) walk away free, with a couple of million dollars in the bag, the poor kid facing a lifetime in prison for no crime walks out free, even Aaron Lake seems to have escaped with his skeletons in his cupboard.

Kindle Excerpt for The Brethren

The Partner by John Grisham (Kindle e-book, Flipkart)

4 stars

As for The Partner, the book travels in kind of reverse gear, with Patrick's capture and torture being the gruesome preface. The novel eases off considerably after that, with small come uppances satisfying the feeling for revenge in the mind of the reader throughout - like the filing of suit against the FBI, the photos of Patrick's wife with her gigolo, and more. The ending though is not a 'happy' one as one has come to accept in Grisham's novels (The Rainmaker, Runaway Jury). Think more like The Summons.....

Kindle Excerpt for The Partner

Monday, September 11, 2006

RK Laxman on Psychiatrists

This RK Laxman cartoon appeared in a Science Smiles compilation, and was re-published in the Sep 10 2006 Sunday Times edition.

Reposted to this blog, Dec 2012

Saturday, September 9, 2006

Muir Woods

Golden Gate and Muir Woods, 2001 - from my photo archive, so to say.
This and the rest of the photos were taken on a trip to Muir woods.

The Golden Gate bridge, seen through a mist.

Millions of photos of the Golden Gate, and here is another one.

Muir Woods

Looking up a tree, as opposed to a looking glass.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

State of Fear by Michael Crichton

State of Fear by Michael Crichton (Kindle e-book, Flipkart)

The book is like other Cricton novels in that it is eminently readable, fast paced, and the focus more on the plot and action than the characters. Some of the characters are not that well etched out, and stand out as near superhuman—like Sarah, Jennifer, or the NSIA agent plus MIT professor plus 007 on duty dude who is also upto date on every known and knowable fact on global warming (or climate change as you choose).

The book also makes the claim, backed by copious footnotes, facts, and references provided at the end of the book, that the whole theory and crescendo of near-paranoia surrounding global warming and the impact that it is having on climate change, does not seem to be borne of facts or scientific observations made over several decades. It does make a person pause for thought. Especially when towards the end of the book, a character conveniently placed for the sake of providing some context to the name of the book - State of Fear - describes that the modern Industrial Military complex needs to create a state of fear with which to control society.

The book seems to be tailor written for conversion into a $150 million summer blockbuster screenplay - wonder whether one is not already in the works...

The New Orleans flooding last year, tsunami in India and sout east Asia in 2004, and other events in the last few years - do suggest that the climate is changing. How much of it is human influenced is something to study more, I guess.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Barista Koramangala

Barista in Koramangala - combine a fairly quiet environment for coffee, a newly acquired digital camera and the realization that the marginal cost of taking photos is close to zero, and you have lots of shots of coffee cups, with coffee.

A zoom lens would have made me happier - I tend to obsess over that a lot in my blog postings I think.. Hmm...

I find it fascinating how they make these nice looking patterns with the cream. The moment you add sugar and stir it is gone. If you stir your coffee it's gone. Why have this pattern then?

Brown sugar is better than refined sugar. No sugar is even better. Though seeing the teanspoonfuls of sugar that people put in their coffee makes you wonder if maybe sugar was not going out of fashion, or maybe drinking coffee was really a very roundabout way of ingesting sugar.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

No Nuisance Here

"Please do not commit nuisance here" - prudishness meets well.... you can see for yourself.

Nuisance kind of keeps it vague and can include acts not quite intended by the sign.... btw - this is near the Ranka Colony on Bannerghatta Road.

Sunday, August 6, 2006

Amazon Pricing

As many, many surveys have revealed - people do not mind paying a little more at a store as long as they feel that everyone else is paying that much more at the store. If a store, surreptitiously, charges some less and some more, that pisses off people no end.

A couple of months back (I am trying to clear off some posts that have been sitting in my drafts folder for a long time) I was quite stunned to see Amazon.com display two different prices for the same item, within 5 seconds of each other, the higher price on a browser where I was logged in with my "Amazon Prime" account, and the lower price on a browser where I was not logged in.

Refreshing the page to clear any cache related issues did not help.
You have to start thinking just where else has Amazon shafted me...

See for yourself:

On Firefox, and on Internet Explorer - same machine, within 5 seconds of each other.
Repeated on another machine, not logged in. Lower price displayed for the same URL.

Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat

Five Point Someone: What Not to Do at IIT by Chetan Bhagat
(Buy Five Point Someone: What Not To Do At IIT from Flipkart.com, Kindle e-book)

3 stars

Finished reading "Five Point Someone" in June. This book is acquiring somewhat of a neo-cult following among some sections of the urban educated class in India, partly because this happens to be possibly the first work of fiction set in the campus setting of an IIT.

The book is fairly readable, owing partly to the fact that it is less than 300 pages long. Also the fact that it has a sprinkling of most ingredients one expects to find in a pulp-fiction thriller. For someone looking for an insight into the secret sauce of IITs and the amazing success that it students have chalked up over the decades, this is not the book. It will disappoint. The book however does, should, strike a chord with most students or near pre or post college years in India. The ending is a bit hokey, with the Hari's dream downright melodramatic, as if the author realized he really did not have a proper ending to the book, and therefore had to resort to this stunt. Otherwise, you shall find a bit of everything in the novel - friendship, rivalry, intrigue, suspense, love, sex, proper Hindi movie style family melodrama, and most other ingredients that one would find in a Hindi potboiler.

If you read some of the reviews on Amazon.com you may feel the book is a lot worse than it is - and that is probably because people are either taking the book or themselves too seriously. And yes, the book does also take a dig at some of the bookworms, the "muggus" - which also may not sit too well with some "muggu" brethren. To be fair, these "ghota-totas" are also some of the same people who make it big in life, so to portray them as people-without-a-life is a tad unfair, bit that is a liberty the author takes - grant him that creative license.

In the end, take the bookwithout any tags attached to it - read it in 3 hours or less and be done with it.

Here is the synopsis of the book and author fromthe book site:

Set in IIT, in the early '90s, Five Point Someone portrays the lives of the protagonist Hari and his two friends Ryan and Alok. It explores the darker side of IIT, one in which students- having worked for years to make it into the institute-struggle to maintain their grades, keep their friends and have some kind of life outside studies.
Funny, dark and non-stop, Five Point Someone is the story of three friends whose measly five-point something GPAs come in the way of everything-their friendship, their love life, their future. Will they make it?
Chetan Bhagat graduated from IIT, Delhi in 1995. He then did an MBA at IIM, Ahmedabad, from where he graduated in 1997. Bhagat currently lives in Hong Kong and works at a prominent US investment bank. Apart from writing, Bhagat also has a keen interest in yoga.

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Bannerghatta National Park

This is the Bannerghatta Road, a state highway, beyond Meenakshi Temple, and as you can see, the road is not bad, it's at least paved.

You have to take a right on Bannerghatta Road some 6-8 kms from Meenakshi Temple, and then drive a couple of kms through a village.

A buffalo letting a crow treat itself to a snack of worms is a photo op not to be missed. A camera with a zoom lens would have made for a more satisfying photo. Well... someday

The entrance to the park. You do not enter through the gate on the right, but drive straight ahead where the ticket counters and main gate are.

This is a closeup of the gate seen in the earlier photo. You can see the timings, and see that the zoo is closed on Tuesdays. I didn't see any postcard shops around, but if carry a polaroid camera you could post an instant card courtesy the post box seen in the corner.

This is where you buy a parking ticket. The venerable old man sitting on the chair kept on giving that enigmatic look the entire time I paid for the ticket and snapped this photo.

Not really something to write home about; this row of shops could be made into something so much more, but this is Karnataka for you. A nice national park so close to a large city like Bangalore, and this is the best that our planners can manage. You can however get a 'bhutta' for five rupees. Lots of shops also sell photo rolls for those who still live have not moved to the world of digital cameras.

And here is the fare card for you - lots of options, you can see the zoo only, or go on a grand safari that packages a tiger safari, lion safari, Bear safari, a herbivore safari, and entrance to the zoo, all for 85 rupees per person.

A map of the zoo tells you that there is a KSTDC hotel proposed near the park. There is also a pre-historic animal park that we did not go to - next time.

The ticket counter - at 10 AM there is no line (queue) and even inside the biological park there were less than 30 visitors - an ideal time to visit one would argue.

And the 'Q' for the different safaris are also empty. Partly because the first buses leaves only at 10:30AM.

They are quite strict about educating people about not littering the place with plastic, which is quite commendable. And truth be told, I did not find plastic bags littering the place. I would like to know if people are actually fined or prosecuted for littering the place...

By far the funniest sign in the whole park - the signage is in Kannada, but you don't need know what's been written to know that people are being told not to tease animals in cages. So while the lion has the man's leg in his mouth, and the elephant has his trunk in the man's mouth, and the monkey is pulling the dude's hair, the bear seems content to watch the show...

Caiman crocodiles. And none of them shedding tears.

Monkeys above the queue for the bus rides. More photos later.

Sunday, July 2, 2006

Kargil Hilton

The Kargil Hilton in Bangalore - yes, that's right. This is neither Kargil, nor is this a Hilton by any stretch of the imagination. And to top it all, this is Bangalore - Southend Road in Basavangudi to be precise. And to hell with trademarks and copyrights. I am sure the proprietor's last name is not Hilton either.

Oracle Travel, Really?

Oracle campus as a travel vendor?? No, not quite. This is just some innovative fella who decided that the Oracle campus in Redwood Shores would make for a nice shop hoarding. I found out this is a travel vendor, so in some ways it makes sense - after all, who wouldn't want to travel to Redwood Shores? Nice glass buildings, with a nice lake frontage. Sounds like a vacation idea, doesn't it?

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Prey by Michael Crichton

Prey by Michael Crichton (Flipkart, Kindle e-book)

5 stars

Just finished reading Michael Crichton's 'Prey' (see book page on Amazon.com, link to book page on Michael's web site). Compared with the last fiction novel I read - Baldacci's The Winner (link on Amazon.com) - this is a far, far better written and researched book. "Prey" holds your interest, has a good plot, and the pace is well maintained. The details at times may bore those uninterested in the minutaue, but the technical gore is kept to a minimum. The pace at which the bio-engineered nanoparticles evolve is a bit too fast to be entirely plausible, or the level of sophistication that they become capable of within a few weeks, but is well presented to make it at least a little bit plausible.

Kindle Excerpt:

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Sex and advertising

Sex in advertising - Sometime last year in September 2005 I had posted a photo on sex in advertising Sex in Advertising, where I posted the "before" photos. I realized I never posted the after photo. Here it is. The entire campaign was for a fitness gym. Go figure.

Wednesday, June 7, 2006

Cog vs Crucial Cog

C|Net had a story, "India becoming a cog in IBM's machine" (link to article on C|Net), that originally appeared in the New York Times (link to article on NYTimes.com), but headlined "India becoming a crucial cog in IBM's machine" - the word "crucial" has been omitted from the C|Net story, possibly for reasons of clarity, brevity? What difference does it make? A cog is a cog is a cog. Crucial, dispensable, incidental - it's all the same!

Anyway, here are some snippets from the article:

"On Tuesday, on the expansive grounds of the Bangalore Palace, a colonial-era mansion once inhabited by a maharajah, the chairman and chief executive of IBM, Sam Palmisano, will address 10,000 Indian employees. He will share the stage with A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, India's president, and Sunil Mittal, chairman of the country's largest cellular services provider, Bharti Tele-Ventures. An additional 6,500 employees will look in on the town hall-style meeting by satellite from other Indian cities."

"IBM is growing not only in size by adding new hires, but also in revenue. The company's business in India grew 61 percent in the first quarter of this year, 55 percent in 2005 and 45 percent the year before."

"From 9,000 employees in early 2004, the number has grown to 43,000 (out of 329,000 worldwide), making IBM the country's largest multinational employer."

Business Today also had a cover story in its May 21 2006 issue, titled "The Race To $10 Billion" (paid login required to read article), that detailed the chances of the big three of making it to $10 billion - TCS, Infosys, Wipro.

Reposted to this blog, Dec 2013.

Monday, June 5, 2006

Wockhardt Hospital

Wockhardt hospital on Bannerghatta Road - opposite the Indian Institute of Management and before the HSBC office and Mantri Paradise is where the latest addition on Bannerghatta Road is coming up - Wockhardt Hospital, which is also listed as an affiliate hospital of Harvard Medical International. The Harvard crest is as prominent as the Wockhardt sign. Wonder what the cost of medical service will be here. What makes things interesting is that the site adjacent to Wockhardt is where Apollo Hospital is coming up. Now people will know that there is a Sagar Apollo hospital already present on Bannerghatta Road, some 3 kms north, near Dairy Cirlce. So Bannerghatta Road will now have four major hospitals, the fourth one being the Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology.

Another photo of Wockhardt hospital on Bannerghatta Road - I forgot that to send multiple photos to Blogger via Hello I have to use the pipe character... well... anyway. Here is the second photo. See my previous post on more about this hospital. See this page -http://hmi.harvard.edu/hmi_partners/partners/wockhardt.php - that briefly describes the nature of Harvard Medical International's affiliation with Wockhardt Hospitals. The Wockhardt Hospitals web site is at http://www.wockhardtin.com/ (hope these URLs are converted into hyperlinks by Hello...

Ebony Restaurant

View from Ebony restaurant on MG Road - this is the view of MG Road and the parade grounds from Ebony rooftop restaurant in the Barton center. And the food isn't bad either. On weekends the buffet is priced at Rs 250 per head. You have to get there before 1pm to get seating, lest you wait.

Sunday, June 4, 2006

Opal Mehta

Who is Opal Mehta? Read her Wikipedia entry (accessed Dec 31, 2013).

The Opal Mehta book on Queen's Road this Saturday. I think this is not a pirated version. I was tempted to pick it up, for posterity, but didn't. I don't think anyone will remember Kavya after a few months. The phrase "internalizing" may be the butt of some jokes for some time, but even that will pass. The young plagiarist will be forgotten... So why waste a hundred rupees or so? It's interesting to see however how keyed in are these street vendors on what is hot and what is more likely to sell.

Reposted to this blog, Dec 2013.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Google Book Scanning

A fairly long and detailed look (link) in the New York Times dated May 14 2006 at the project to scan all books, or at least those whose copyright is in the public domain, by Google and others. The article is broken up into eight sections, or online pages - 1. Scanning the Library of Libraries, 2. What Happens When Books Connect, 3. Books: The Liquid Version, 4. The Triumph of the Copy, 5. The Moral Imperative to Scan, 6. The Case Against Google, 7. When Business Models Collide, and 8. Search Changes Everything.

I think digitization is a boon in many ways as it would make available books geographically inaccessible or hard to find because they are out of print - I for example purchased a couple of books from Barnes & Noble and Amazon in the US because they are difficult if not outright to purchase in India. But at the same time I have this serious misgiving that the end goal ultimately is to make access to this content filtered through a payment gateway so that you shall never ever really own a book, but merely rent the right to read or browse it when you want. Something like the difference between owning a DVD of a movie versus watching it on pay-per-view or renting it from a library. Does anyone remember Divx - that Disney, Circuit City and others conjured up in 1998?

Monday, May 15, 2006

St Louis, 1997

Where was I in 1997 - who cares? Ok, let's be nice - this is my blog and I shall post on whatever suits my fancy. This is where I worked for a little over a year, from 1996 to 1997. In the background you can see the Gateway Arch, 630 feet high, and a midwest landmark. While most Americans know about the Gateway Arch, most Indians probably do not. On the right is the Busch stadium (St Louis is where Anheuser Busch is headquartered...). Towards the left you will find three buildings of SBC. The tallest one nearest you is their main building, there is a shorter building after that, which is their data center. The black building you see is (or at least used to be) Cap Gemini's offices. Don't know if that's still true or not. Harrah's and a few other casinos offer river-boat gambling on large boats, more like ships, anchored by the river. And before you go and say 'ah-haa!! he has not taken this photo', let me say that yes, I did not take this photo. This is a postcard of St Louis.

The photos below however are all mine

This is the Gateway Arch below. If I were to go there again, which I doubt, I would love to spend an entire day in the downtown St Louis area and shoot a couple of hundred photos there (yeah - if you can't get quality, go for quantity)

As you can tell from the date stamp on the photo (look at the top right corner), I took this photo in Feb 1997. This is an exhibit inside the Old Courthouse (see the end of this post for some Wikipedia links) where the history of St Louis is traced. Some fascinating nuggets about this old river town (old by American standards that is) can be seen in this timeline:

The first kindergarten in the US was setup in St Louis.

At the turn of the century (that would be 1899, not 1999) St Louis was the fourth largest city in the US. Even more, it had the world's largest railroad station (it's still there, though now a shopping center in it), hardware house, drug house, and tobacco factories.

You can also learn that it was the year 1876 when the first Budweiser beer was brewed, here in St Louis.

Clearing snow off your car is a chore one learns quickly in the midwest. Unlike California where most drivers never ever get to experience the pleasure of scraping snow off the front of their cars, in St Louis it was a frequent enough task during the winter that I actually became efficient at it! The worst however is when there is freezing rain. It forms a thick coat of ice on your car, and you can no longer brush it off your car. You have to start your car, switch on the heater at full speed, set it to defrost mode, step out of the car, and spend the next twenty minutes literally hacking away at the ice. Yes, this is fun...

Reposted to this blog, Dec 2013.