Earth Hour and India

There is a lot of hallaboo happening around, Earth Hour, where folks on this planet switch off all the electric items for one hour!!!

Good idea.. no doubt... But the question here is, "Does India need Earth Hour???"

Nope!!!

We in India, have some (rather majority of) places, where there is no electricity at all, then where is the need to switch off!

Even in the place where there is electric supply, we have power-cuts which are scheduled, like say daily three hours of power-cut. Then with a daily earth hour, do we need another specific "Earth Hour"

This is a fad for the rich and powerful countries; remember they glutton food and then talk of "diet" food and obesity problem. This "Earth Hour" too is a by product of surplus-resources, not for the have-nots.

On/OFF Switch

On the United Airlines flight yesterday night, the attendant asking all the passengers to switch off the electronic equipment for flight take off, said the following sentance.

"Everything that has the ON/OFF switch needs to be in OFF mode and stowed"

There is nothing wrong with that sentance, only that a quick mind sitting beside me, got into action and made the following deductions and said to me...

"Hey, you know what? She just now said...

1. Only men's brain have swith ON/OFF for $%X
2. Stow away : your "you-know-what" to be stowed away; but where - you decide. "

I couldn't stop laughing and started to wonder if all men, across the world think alike...

Parents Crib

Was reading a blog post of a friend, where a mention of a quote from Confucius was mentioned as

"In olden times, people studies to improve themselves. Today they only study to impress others"

That reminded me of an anecdote from Readers Digest, that I read a long time ago, that in a letter written on papyrus was found in some excavations. In that letter a Roman senator wrote to his friend about his son this way, "He spends more time with his barber than with his teachers."

So all in all, parents always have the same crib, since ages. My parents were always pissed off with my ways of studies, while am doing the same with my kid...

batter milk labhinchunu

This is a vinyl poster outside a small kiosk in Hyderabad, where Heritage foods is marketing the availability of butter milk. Nothing is wrong in this photo, but if someone who knows both the languages of English and Telugu reads this will make out that the one on the top which is Telugu is not in proper synch with the intent.

If it were to be translated it should say #majjiga labhinchunu# where #majjiga# means "butter milk" and #labhinchunu# means "available".

However it is a half-translated and half transliterated sentence. It reads "batter milk labhinchunu" where the first part of "batter milk" is transliterated and the second part "labhinchunu" is translated.

Some fun ways of life...

New Age Mathematics

This is one of the seasons in India, where every parent undergoes tremendous amount of pressure. Called the "Kid's Exam Season".

On my part as a typical Indian parent am spending more time with Her Highness, so that she at least knows the names of her lessons. [My mother says, it is history repeating and shows my past karmic deeds for the current tensions of mine]

The question in mathematics was

Rajesh has 15 coins and he distributes them equally among his three brothers. How many coins each of the brother gets?

"Fifteen divided by Five", pat came the answer - which obviously made me very happy at my teaching capabilities.

My wife came there and asked her, "Why is it fifteen divided by five, not five divided by fifteen?"

for which the response was "I do not know fifteen (multiplication) table, so!!!"

Well, that the life is for you!!

Edits: Thanks to Srini, who pointed out the typo - Fifteen divided by five, it should have been fifteen divided by three and same at all the places. Due to my hurry in writing this post (on a hand held device) the typo.

Soap on the water...

I was listening to "Smoke on the water" today afternoon... my kid got curious and asked me, why is he (singer) singing about "soap on water"...

At times, perspectives would be different from what they seem to be... 

soap on water, 

soap on http,
soap on jms... 

and finally smoke on water...