RangaShankara, Rohit and Vishy

So it was my idea to go the play by Girish Karnad. I managed to convince Rohit, Vishy and Gazal and their folks to come along too. Hitched a ride with Rohit to JP Nagar. On the way we talked about the traffic and congestion. While I gave a dumb opinion, that we should stop any more people from coming to Bangalore, Rohit said that we should probably think diverting any traffic whose destination is not Bangalore and also of developing the hub-and-spoke model - increasing the number of hubs with shorter spokes. Seemed a sensible thing. But by the time he finished explaining how the air traffic follows this model, we realize we needed directions to reach JP Nagar.

At Vishy's home, we came to know from his mother who had already watched the play, that there was only one actor. Uh! What! I had specifically chosen this play against another one where Vasanthi of Radio City, Good morning Bangalore fame, had announced was a one-man-play. I had been pretty certain this was not the one. Well, Vishy's mother said it was a one-woman-play, if that was any consolation. Rohit exclaimed away about how a person could talk for a whole hour and still make sense. That was the least of my worries. So while Gazal served us delicious dosa, chutney and sambar and nice hot coffee, I worried what would be the case if the whole thing got dry and monotonous. I still let my hopes live while the others threatened to clobber me after the play (others being Vishy, Gazal, Vishy's friend Swapan and wife Lopamudra). I whined that they should not have gone ahead with the booking if they had known this.

Yogi and his wife were also at RangaShankara. Hello! Judging by appearances and costumes, it looked like a lot of clever people in society had turned up. I was just beginning to look around some more, and they rang a bell, a fierce school-ish bell. So I ran out of the bookshop where I was peacefully in. I came out and started reading the notice boards. There was another event later in August which was again, a solo play. I wondered aloud whether a solo play was some type of cost cutting measure. Hmm. The next bell rang fiercely again, and we went off to find our seats. The girl handed out some brochure about RangaShankara and the play. I read it. It said 'Lead Actor: Arundhati Raja'. See, I looked around hopefully and said - it does not say Only Actor. Hmm. Gazal was amused that I had not lost hope. Meanwhile Vani Ganapati had strode in with a glittering costume and was sitting in the front row just ahead of us. See, I told Gazal. This increases our chances of appearing on Page 3 tomorrow.
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The play was brilliant! All of us enjoyed and were glad we watched it! Had dinner at Vishy's, cooked by his dad. Very tasty! The return ride was also fun. Rohit moaned about having left his scooter in Vishy's place because of the rain. Am so sleepy! Look forward to another play!

My New Hobby On The Net

I have suddenly changed loyalties from Internet Explorer (IE) to Firefox since the last two weeks. I had got so used to the IE shortcuts and was stubbornly unwilling to look at another browser. But that was back then, when I was young and foolish. So let's hear me sing praises of Firefox.

This browser is neat and stacks up all the different URLs in tabs within the same browser so my desktop looks uncluttered. It has the very same shortcuts as IE, so I did not have to relearn anything. In fact, it imported all my favourite bookmarks too. It remembers my passwords more fashionably.

Okay, Firefox has this really creative plugin called Stumble. And it takes the shape of a little button. You tell this plugin all the topics of interest to you and then it lets you Stumble on websites of related topics. It randomly picks a topic and presents you a page. It was so much fun ! I think I was awake till around two in the morning Stumbling upon information and fun stuff on mathematics and science. I got pretty interesting things to read.

There was a site that explained the Kaprekar constant. Apparently it goes like this. Take any 4 digit number which may have repeating digits. Arrange them into the largest and smallest number and find the difference. The difference, which is also a 4 digit number and treat it the same way. Arrange it into largest and smallest digits and go on. Finally, one reaches a point where the difference will come to a constant value of 6174. This is the Kaprekar constant. The reason is that this process follows a sequence which is finite.

Another thing I found was that IBM has this monthly puzzle (and I found them truly puzzling) and most certainly makes for cerebral-wake-up. Oh yes, and before I forget, some passing reading on origami, mentioned that unfolding the paper would reveal a complex geometric pattern.

Oh well, I am getting so addicted to this ! This morning while I was having breakfast, I decided to read the Net instead of a book, like I usually do, so I didn't have to turn the pages. And I did a random Stumble. I got a dump of inconsequential facts like 2 out of 3 who voted for Bush go to Church although Bush is not a believer, that some sued someone else who was already dead, despite knowing that the second someone was dead, that 7% of Americans claim that they don't bathe, that a bar in London sells vaporized vodka so people smell, sorry, inhale instead of sipping it, that the Bible has been translated to Klingon - which is (an imaginary) language of the Star Trek characters, and that polar bears are left handed. Now did that matter to my existence ! Ah well, but it was an enjoyable breakfast alright !

Reading on Lateral Thinking

Quite by chance, I read The Leader's Guide To Lateral Thinking by Paul Sloane over the weekend. What stood out in that book for me is - you won't find anything new if you look hard in the same direction.

I thought the examples used in it were quite powerful, since I still remember them. One is the fish bowl example (separating the small fish from the one large fish that eats them with a glass partition) - that the brain becomes complacent after a while and stops questioning. The other one was that of Henry Ford - who fired a senior manager who salted his soup before tasting it. Ooh ! That was apparently because he "prejudged situations" and Ford didn't want someone like that. IMHO, it was very unfair on Ford's part - I might have also probably salted my soup, if I was familiar with the restaurant :-) but then, run the risk of being fired by someone like Ford! Well, I think that did happen in my job interview at ThinkPad when Salam asked me what Objects were. I had rattled off what I knew and then when quizzed more, got stuck for significant answers. So I said OOPS and got away with it!

Okay, now back to the book. There was also a list of quotes by famous people and how we've progressed so much more that such as why would anyone want a computer at home, and that TV has very little significance in one's life, and heavier-than-air flights were impractical, and one by Bill Gates in '81 where he said 640k would be more than enough for anyone. . While we are at it, I also remember Edward do Bono's thinking hats being used somewhere in the workplace too. Though this book didn't have any On a serious note, that book put me (back) on a higher frequency and I am all excited about reading books again. Now going back to where I left of from Emotional Intelligence

A nice thought

Everyone can be an artist. Some of us paint with words, others with musical notes. Some do it with equations while others use bricks and mortar. And some even do it with paints. No matter what medium we use, if we've poured our soul into it, the result is bound to be a masterpiece

Do you know who Samuel P. Huntington is ?

"West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."
---------- Samuel P. Huntington