HAPPY D-WALL-E!

This is not just another buzzfeed article.

This chain of thought  triggered when Professor Walter Lewin was explaining centrifugal force by the way his grandmother demonstrated its use in kitchen. The professor explains how his Grandma used to dry vegetables by stirring the colander ; and thereby allowing the tiny water particles to be ejected out of the colander. The professor who teaches  at MIT expressed “Ahh.. How technology has taken out the romance out of regular and common things!” Now that an MIT professor has made a statement like that,I will not sound a fool when I elucidate this with examples.

1.   Around 2 decades back, you would have to retain your slam book . You would encircle the birthdays of your close and dear friends on the calendar.You would have bought a warm birthday card and sent it miles away via post.

Now you simply leave a message on facebook after seeing the reminder;that is the lousiest way to wish considering there may be 900 people doing the same.

2.  So Ladies ! gone are the days when he would have swept you off your feet by falling down on his knees and proposing to you. Love has found a veil to hide and this time it is all online.Fear of rejection and embarrassment makes us express our first wish on phone or through chat. That is playing so safe. The very emotion is killed. Likewise you don’t get to see her shock and she doesn’t remember your facial expression either. I have also witnessed brides calling up their grooms in case the “baraat is stuck up. No excitement?No suspense?

3.    Exam results! There used to be a time  when friends would walk  in droves and the queue up in front of the result board that would be impenetrable. Each would get comforted in the other's disappointment. The jubilant topper would be taken and flung up in the air. It would be euphoria that is seen in cricket matches today.Now? You  get result via sms or on the internet and phone calls would suffice for all the jubilation.

4.   So you think you can pretend? Gone are the days when people would feign illness and remain absent from work. Now your employer will trace you down on your cellphone. Or worse install some GPS or microchip to know your location. Worst he might even come over ,give you magic pills to pop and demand you join work asap or else the stock markets crash!

5. You can no longer say “no” to that gaming console your son badly wants . You can’t give him the excuse that Nintendo Wii isn’t available in Jhumri Talaiya. Neither can you say that you don’t have cash in your wallet. He knows you have internet and flipkart offers cash on delivery.

6.Gone are the days moms used to sing their babies lullabyes. Just look for lullabyes on youtube and play them on!

7.What would have happened if there was no hawkeye and no 3rd umpire?The cussing and the debate  would have gone for weeks. India would have won so many more number of times.

8. As a child I reminisce the hours of preparation Diwali took. Right from washing the diyas,to placing the wicks after oiling diyas. In between  checking the level of oil in the diyas and replenishing some 50 odd diyas around the house. Now it is so effortless. You hardly realise the tradition of diyas. Just press a switch and your diwali lights start flickering. Though artificial lights light up,they never compete with the beauty of the traditional diyas.

Here’s wishing Happy Diwali!

  P.S I wish they had an app that could play the fire cracker like high decibel sound so that people could put on earphones  and those who despise high decibels (like me) never witness the noise. Noise free Diwali!

PALATE POWER

Has “cuisine” ever been so glamourous  as it is today? Look at the way it has been sensationalised. As a child I remember it was Sanjeev Kapoor who took the bold step of appearing on screen teaching recipes to an afternoon audience primarily targeting homemakers. But look at what globalisation and technology has done to the food culture today. There are special channels dedicated to cooking shows.Nigella Lawson,Padma Lakshmi and David Rocco are no less popular than rockstars. Thats the power of palate. Kudos to masterchef! That is some reality TV innovation.

     In fact culinary is getting much deserved attention .It is a pursuit that activates all the five basic senses. For engineers as my friend points out,it is thermodynamics. There’s requisite heat,consistency of ingredients and proper curing that is required to make a dish a success. With rising disposable incomes,food seems to be the most happening investment.Yet we have the sad plight of homemakers across the country who dedicate most of their lives to cooking in kitchen and yet receive little or no credit.

    I remember as a young girl the only reason I studied was to escape what I saw my mom do. The thankless and labour intensive job of a homemaker. The arduous process of kneading the dough, rolling the chapatti and then baking it. And then processing vegetables and perfecting that stew. All this 3 times a day.After English Vinglish here is another movie showcasing the helpless “Bharatiya Nari”.This is the theme of the movie “Lunchbox”.

 A brilliant movie for connoisseurs as it explores the simplicity and thrill of a mundane life of a homemaker played by Nimrat Kaur.The pretty lady scorched the screen in 2002 with music videos. Sad! No one noticed her then,but she is back with a bang and sans makeup.

The director,a debutant  Ritesh Batra has executed the craft brilliantly,keeping an eye on details; like keeping  Ila’s eyebrows unkempt,her kitchen not so clean. Irfan and Nawazzudin need no credit. Their acting like always, is class apart.The subtle humour  between them is impeccable.At times you will need to listen to the dialogues attentively to understand the underlying humour. For eg . Nawazuddin tells “how his dad last laughed in 1984 when India won the world cup against Pakistan”. Irrfan  dons that perfect expression whether he is being molested in train or simply missing his late wife.Many moments in the movie pass in silence but you cannot ignore the emotions.

    The central story revolves around exchange of letters with an unknown friend,the only difference being that this time it is  passed in  lunchbox  that lands up at the wrong destination.It also explores the facet of human relationships.  A widower’s isolation and his scruffy attitude towards his neighbourhood kids.His indifferent attitude towards his colleagues.All this changes when he comes in touch with an unknown woman who starts confiding in him.

  The movie is also a tribute to Mumbai dabbawalas. My favourite part is when Ila accuses the dabbawala of delivering tiffin at the wrong address,the dabbawala mumbles “ Aisa nahi ho sakta,Harvard waale aake padhke gaye hain aur Britain ka Raja bhi jaanta hai”(This cannot be true ,Harvard had conducted study on us and even Britain’s prince knows that).

No more spoilers,go watch the movie that pays tribute to household economics. 
 I feel sorry for KJO and Anurag Kashyap who have every right to be sad as the movie has not been chosen as India’s entry to Oscars.

They had tried hard to make an authentic movie,and going by the Oscar “intellectual” trends  kept it open ended (which is making Indian junta scratch their hair)

P.S I wanted to use Vir Sanghvi's presently inactive column's name Rude Food to lure attention nevertheless kept it simple as our moms. And If your mom or wife is a homemaker make sure you let her know about this

THANK YOU!

Thank you Readers!

And a special thanks to the online world ,where anyone of us can be catapulted to the fame.

And with my limited fame comes the self-award function.With the award function comes the necessary 

Thank You speech.

Or maybe the metaphysical part of my brain is wired to thank so as to attract more good things in life.

As spiritual thinkers say gratitude is a law of attraction .

Never mind the overdose ..here goes my speech....

I am thankful to you for making Shrill's no frills blog hit 20000 mark.

I know the blog could have garnered more hits had I publicised it well with  attractive photos of sunny celebrities.(note the pun)

But who cares? I believe simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

When I started blogging in 2006,it was merely a fad.

Blogspot didn't have the autosave feature then and I remember having lost my contents to power cuts as my PC then didn't have the UPS functioning.

Since 2006 it has been a gradual journey where I have rambled about various things  .

The  idea is not to stay limited in  life. I have to keep expanding my horizon of thought.

So I have tried never to  limit my range in my writings.

Of course hues of social issues have been often painted in my posts.

But I have tried humour as well. 

Frankly I don't want to be the greatest blogger. Blogging for me is more of a catharsis and a creative exercise.

Ever since I read about Theory of multiple intelligences,I am driven by the urge to be adept at all of them.

And there in lies the problem of being a  Polymath .

Wannabe Polymaths have always admired Benjamin Franklin ,Leonardo da Vinci, and Newton(my first post was dedicated to him)  and the likes who never limited their realm of thought. 

I want to be a blogger,singer,traveler,engineer, friend, entrepreneur,geek, yogi, environmentalist,economist, athelete, quizzer,pianist, philosopher ,a change maker and hundred things I don't even know of.

So I will keep my promise and continue to write about everything under the sun and beyond as I keep unravelling them.

Till then be unlimited .

As shrill voices...you keep listening!

JANMAASHTAMI!

Oh Krishna!
Thou art great.

As an adult or in your childhood state.

 The naughty son,  Balaram’s brotherly fun

 Dwarka’s chosen one, with the eternal Sudarshan

The way you stand,with your body so sinuous

As if to remind us to be flexible and never fuss

 With that mellifluous flute you enchanted as Murli Manohar

 You have been worshipped as the dark faced Shyam Sundar

Why do people in this world not realise?

That being dark is not a vice

 While Yamuna was poisoned by the Kalia, killing your herdsmen

 The scene is no different today again,with toxins in the country’s den

Your message was clear even then

To worship and respect environment at Govardhan

 For nature around us should be resurrected

 Not some officious leader like Indra respected.

A friend to Sudama, provider to the penniless impoverished

We need that bounty again, as our vaults are famished

 The wonders of your flirtatious dance with the maidens of Dwarka

 But that true love for your soulmate Radhika

That one time when you married 16000 maidens

Only to restore their honour back,after Narakasura’s violation

 An epitome of a man you were

Saving Draupadi’s honour during that horrific stir

The situation is no different today

As thousands of them are disrobed and perpetrators walk away

 From Mahabharata we need that strategist, and that warrior

 That pragmatic leader and seer that even bravest fear
The country is again in conflict
With many forces internal and external betwixt

 Where are you dear Lord? Will you come down to earth?

 Or are atheists right? You had never really taken birth.

 In your delusion your Meera will be

Timelessly waiting for thee.

Waiting for the next Janmaashtami

This painting is the original work of artist Mukta Gupta

SAW DES

The main  gates of the building were open ,not as usual. After crossing the small garden we knocked on the door. A frail girl opened the door and allowed us to go inside. We climbed up the stairs which had pictures of Jesus Christ and Mother Teresa on the side walls. On ascending the first floor they were there. Five kids with biscuits in their hands. All of them were toddlers. Their eyes twinkled with surprise as they saw us. We sat there in the verandah and soon one of them started to cry. Quickly my friend took the baby in her arms. The baby stopped crying as if mollified by the foreign human touch. The other kids as if jealous followed suit and started to cry. With their heads shaven,dressed in tiny shirts and shorts all of them looked the same.We asked the caretaker the baby’s name as we couldn’t make out if the baby was a girl or a boy. The baby’s name was Rahul.

       We enquired the  whereabouts of the other kids of the orphanage . The caretaker told us that the rest had been taken to witness the flag hoisting in the nearby old age home. I was reminded of the last time we had gone to that same Old age home. A year back a group of friends had thought of doing something productive during weekends. When we had stepped inside the old age home, I was clear I couldn’t volunteer there. The suffering was impalpable and I became aware of my limitation as a humanist. There were some 100 old men and women suffering from Alzheimer ,other ailments and the rest were homeless. That was a sight I had never seen.
  Now,the caretaker  ushered me into the inside rooms that housed cots in which the tiny ones,who were younger than 1 year  slept. She  asked me to help her handle the bottle of milk . In one of those cots something caught my sight. There was a tiny white wrap. The help told me that the baby was merely 2 weeks old.That baby had been left back by the father soon after the mother died during delivery. My friend who had come to the place for the first time was moved and very close to tears.  

    Just then we heard sounds of happy feet clambering up the stairs.The flag hoisting was over  and the sisters were bringing the rest of the kids back . The sisters gave us a smile and asked the other helps to get the kids ready for brunch. At the verandah a diet chart was displayed and it was time for their porridge. The sisters called out names of the  30 kids and started feeding them as it was a quotidian activity for them. We kept watching in awe as each one was being fed. 

  Thousand thoughts floated in my mind.

Do the kids get enough food?  Can an individual really make a difference to a nation? What can India do to reduce the poor –rich disparity ? Isn’t  human population really at tipping point? Is Malthusian Economics really true?  Should philanthropy just be a time pass activity?  Why has the Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charities been charged with conversion?Will media ever stop questioning? Is perfection possible? In this world of globalization do national boundaries matter? Is Independence day to be celebrated with tokenism of flag hoisting? What made me visit the place?What if I had not come here and was cozing in the comfortable pages of my books? Or do I simply come here to assuage my guilt?  Is it only on a national holiday that my conscience suffers a jolt?

  Breaking my thoughtful glare,the sister declared: "Its time for the kids to take their afternoon nap. Please keep coming for they have no one. They just like the human touch."

I silently leave and make no promises.

HOLOQUEST

Circa 1998:

A quiz question while I was in class 5 in the year 1998.

“What word was coined by Elie Wiesel to describe Hitler’s massacre of the Jews?”

   I remember not knowing the answer then. The answer, which my teacher later told us ,was “Holocaust”.

Ever since that day the subject has always mystified me.The world affairs of late 1990s and early 2000s were earmarked by  Israel and Palestine peace talks. Israel was always in news and somehow I always felt it behaved like a “stubborn child refusing to let go”. When I was in class 8^th another question popped in a quiz  “Which community has had the highest recipient of Nobel Prizes ?”

  Now  Richard Dawkins would have hated this question.How can intellect intertwine with religious faith? But he would also know that the answer lay  in the Jewish “Selfish Gene”.  

Personally I have always questioned the co-relation of High IQ with being a Jew. Even Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud were born to Jewish parents,though their religious views were not very orthodox.Also if Anne Frank grew up into a young woman she would have bagged a Nobel Prize too.

   There have been countless studies done on the Jewish intelligence. 

   Jewish rebellion against Roman rule was killed in first century AD. After this Jews fled in all direction to form Diaspora. In the middle ages when they were subjected to legal discrimination,it drove them to money related professions as banking and tax farming which were forbidden by Christians.This along with low levels of intermarriage made them retain their IQ. This isolation however presents itself in terms of the number of diseases that are prevalent in the race as they have had very low levels of intermarriage.Here is another interesting read.

To corroborate further think of the names figuring amongst the top World( Read: USA) business people?

Be it the Bloomberg,Rothschilds, Ben Bernanke,Alan Greenspan,Marcus Goldman,Llyod Blankfein,Tim Geithner,Larry Summers, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Michael Dell,Larry Ellison and Mark Zuckerberg.

What is common?

Their parents had kosher food on the day of Sabaath.

The current financial success of the Jews has a lot to do with holocaust.  Of the nine million Jews who had resided in Europe before the Holocaust, approximately two-thirds were killed. Over one million Jewish children were killed in the Holocaust, as were approximately two million Jewish women and three million Jewish men. A network of over 40,000 facilities in Germany and German-occupied territory were used to concentrate, hold, and kill Jews and other victims. The horror of the concentration camps and the gas chambers has also been a cornerstone of the 20^th century literary culture.Much has been written and adapted into movies. So much so,that the academy awards has always a joke going around, “If you want  an Oscar Award ,make a movie on Holocaust”. Here is the list of some of my favourite Holocaust movies.

1. Schindler's List

2. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

3.The Pianist

4. The Reader

5.Life is Beautiful

6.Sophie's Choice

7.Kapo 

These movies are poignant and capture the horror that took place during the extermination.The pogrom made the Jews a closed knit empathizing community .A large chunk migrated from Europe into USA during the 2nd world war . In a bid to start their own livelihood,the migrants started their own business. Many of the Jewish big businesses started really small eg. Levis Strauss and his denims,Singer and his sewing machines.

    Today the number of Jews in USA exceed the number of Jews in Israel,though Israel is a  constitutionally the only Jewish state that officially came into being in the year 1948 after UN declaration and  Jewish lobby . As of now Israel has a very high standard of living. Israel leads in military technology research. I personally find its practice of conscription very noteworthy. It has turned a deserted land into arable food bowl by using drip technology. All this said Israel still remains far from peaceful.

   Anthropology and Humanities stretch for centuries and Jews are a big example of that.

If you are wondering what triggered this post.

For all those nerds who are as curious as I am about Holocaust,here Follow this . It is a great chance to know more through a proper course at Coursera.

And for all those who have found this post too heavy.Take it easy.

Just Youtube Sarah Silverman's Jesus is Magic and watch it under Parental Supervision.

P.S Where would a dumb jew be sent? 
       Ans.  SINagogue

Elementary My Dear!!

We all love crime thrillers.Don’t we? The largest number of books that sell are the ones that have a detective going around a murder plot ,trying to put in place the clues. Whether it be Nancy Drew for a kid or Sidney Sheldon as an adult. Not to forget Detective Sherlock Holmes ,the eccentric detective who inspired the entire genre of detective fiction .Had that not been the case ACP Pradyuman and Daya would not have created a record with CID being on air since the past decade. What about that criminal case spamming your facebook wall?

   Not only books but TV too. As a child I was hooked on to the Discovery’s earliest show called Medical Detectives aka Forensic Files.It sent TRPs racing. Not to mention Tehkikaat ,Reporter and Byomkesh Bakshi did the same for DD. Most recently all the American and British channels run thrillers at prime time. Be it Breaking bad,Mentalist,Sherlock Holmes ,Castle ,CSI ,Dexter,Body of Proof and all such whodunits. Why leave the movies behind? Silence of the Lambs ,Usual Suspects, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, L.A Confidential and the Hitchcocks classics. A well written crime fiction screenplay (spiced with bold scenes) is the shortest recipe for success.

   What I find immensely fascinating is the way these American/English stories handle crimes. The entire area will be cordoned and there will pop a smart and attractive male/female detective (who will be paradoxically dressed to kill) out of a black SUV. Ahh! And the best part is when the forensics team lands up at the crime scene. They will be ready with all the biological,chemical,psychological,morphological mumbo jumbo. The lead expert will examine the slides and advise the detective ;at times engaging in altercations. And just when you thought you had the killer zeroed in,wait for the last blow. There will be a digression in the trail and the least suspected character will emerge as the killer. I often reflect on this. Is this really true? Does the law and order work with this precision and exactness so as to nab the fugitive , silent killer?

  As I did my research it turns out that yes,to a great extent it is true in countries like US and UK which indeed have very strong infrastructure as far as the Crime detection and investigation are concerned. The government has its own forensics labs in most of the cities and add to that there are a lot of private labs too catering to forensics.The value of human life lost at the cost of injustice is of utmost importance to the state. Compare that to India. We have a handful of forensic labs in our country and very few courses in forensics science. The credibility of the ones existing too is a big issue. Does human life really mean anything to the state? There are millions of people missing and murdered but those that don’t make headlines are shoved off. What I see here is a major opportunity. If the government utilises the population and boosts crime investigations by increasing the number of personnels in the police force , CBI and CID and equipping the country with forensic labs not only will  more employment be generated but also  crime rates curtailed.More number of students will enrol in pure sciences .The respect for human life will be restored.A principle that embodies a developed country.

   Of course this solution seems to be a utopian dream but it can very much be  implemented. We are just not putting enough of  thought in this direction. Imagine a course at IIT on Forensics engineering . It would encompass psychology,biology,chemistry ,self defence and so much more. It would definitely be a crowd puller as so many of us have grown up adoring detectives. 
Why has this never occurred to the politicians sitting in the legislature? 
Probably because they are afraid they will be hunted down by a strong investigation system.
That is the end of this whodunit. 
Elementary! My dear watch son!