Most of the major Indian rivers flow eastward. Of course we do have the Narmada and Tapti and the Punjabi rivers, and several smaller ones in the western ghats (Sharavathi, etc.) but most of the major ones flow eastward. To put it objectively, the total quantity of river water that is flowing eastward in India at any given point of time is much much more than the total quantity of river water that is flowing westward in India at any given point of time. This means that when a major river takes a west turn, the point is considered holy.
Category: fundaes
thanks guys
Dear Rahul and Team,
I must thank you guys for sparing me the agony of at least six more sleepless nights over the next one month. I must thank you for saving me and my friends the countless hours spent at work talking about you guys, and which of you will do well and how. I must thank you for saving my evenings, which can now be spent in ways more productive than just watching some boring one-sided cricket on TV.
Upset
I am writing this a few hours after two of the most shocking upsets in World Cup history. Both India and Pakistan have lost. India still have some faint hopes, with two games in hand. If they win both these games, and really heavily, there is still a faint chance that they may qualify. Pakistan, however, have no such hope. Having already lost to the West Indies, they are out of the world cup.
Deodhar VS Salve
I?m surpised we are not having a ?Challenger Trophy? before selection of the Indian team for the World Cup. For, of late, the BCCI practice before any big tour or tournament has been to have this mindless tournament, named after yet another of those politician-administrators N K P Salve. A tournament where the ?India Seniors? team takes on the supposed second and third string teams, with the intention of providing the 33 best players in the country a chance to show their mettle.
dowry
While aadisht does a series of posts on dowry, I think the whole concept doesn’t make sense. That something as trivial as dowry should find a place in the indian constitution, so much to make it illegal and stuff!
chess…
Dear Indian Mainstream Media,
You owe us chess lovers an explanation as to why you haven’t covered the Topalov-Kramnik unification match at all. Save the odd report regarding the toilet controversy, there has been absolutely no mention about the match in the Indian print media, and this behavior is totally unacceptable.
You should visit any of these state or city level age group tournaments to know what the chess scene is like in India. Following Anand’s success at the top millions of parents think their kid too can make it and for him/her to take chess lessons and participate in tournaments even before he/she enters school. Ten years ago when I played in age group tournamnets all matches were timed. Now, I hear that people are being asked to bring their own chessboards. Such is the growth of chess in India.
Did you think Anand’s absence was a convenient excuse? Then why do you give so much footage to ATP and WTA singles, when no Indian is even close to winning a tournament (Sania Mirza is overrated)? So that people can lech at Sharapova and Nadal? Why, then, do you give so much footage to the PGA tour, where Tiger Woods and Annika Sorenstram are not even lechable!
Or is it that you yourself weren’t aware of this match? In that case, as media houses, you have absolutely no business to be in your business. And should quickly shut down and let someone competent take over.
We didn’t want much. All we needed were a couple of write-ups leading up to the match (there are enough grandmasters from India who could do this for you), and then when the match started, a game-by-game summary of where it is progressing. Coverage of the entire match wouldn’t have taken mroe than a total of half a page of newsprint!
I hereby request you to tender an apology for your gross negligence of this issue, and promise that such things don’t happen again in the future. Your support is essential for making India a superpower in any sport.
Regards
The Grameen Bank and Indian Microfinance
It is refreshing that this year?s Nobel Peace Prize has gone to Dr. Mohammed Younus and the Grameen Bank. With the last few Nobel Peace Prizes having gone largely to diplomats, giving the prize to an institution in an underdeveloped country which has taken development to the masses is a welcome change.
interest rates derivatives revisited…
so my favorite topic of interest rate swaps has made front page news today (in the Business Standard). apparently the food corporation of india (FCI) entered into a swap with Barclays in which FCI received fixed and paid an interest rate linked to the yield on Indian GSecs. now it so happens that reverse repo rates have gone up by much more than Barclays had projected (thus driving up yields on GSecs), and poor FCI is now getting mothered.
Telecom pricing
Yesterday I sent an SMS to Pradeep, who lives in a village called West Lafayette in Amreeka. A couple of minutes later, I get an angry mail from him ?loser, why did you have to send that SMS? I just got charged 10 cents for receiving that! You should?ve mailed?.
two-dimensional food
One big problem that the freight industry faces is that cargo has at least two dimensions – volume and weight, and there are constraints on both axes which need to be taken care of. This is the most basic model, since you can look at 3 dimensions of volume, orientation, and a host of other “dimension”.
Similarly, food also has two dimensions – volume and calories. You can either have “rich” food or you can eat lots of “normal” food. “Rich” foods include stuff like red meat, cheese, chocolate and the like.
Now the typical indian vegetarian strategy is to eat lots of low-calorie food. We eat lots of rice. Lots of rotis. We eat “pet bhar ke” (stomach full). And most of the food we eat is of the nature that if you eat until your stomach is full, you will ingest the appropriate number of calories.
So this indian vegetarian goes to London and sees people having one sandwich for lunch. It doesn’t fill his stomach, so he has two, unmindful that he is ingesting extra calories. One pasta doesn’t fill his huge tummy, so he has two. He doesn’t care for the calories he is putting on, he eats as long as his stomach feels empty.
Two months later he comes back to India with a paunch. He hasn’t been able to get rid of it even after a year.