February 17 - fictional significance !

This detailed question and the incredible answers were created by Girish Phatarphod, an illustrious batchmate of mine from IIMA. Read and Enjoy !!!!

Today is Feb 17th. Here is a question for all of you. Several centuries ago, on Feb 17th, an "organization" was "formally" created by a swearing in ceremony. (The quote marks are important). You have to find/name that organization. Rest assured, all of you know about it - its not something you are unaware of. Here are the characterestics of this organization -

1) It is non-religious.
2) It is the wealthiest organization in the world, with assets more than US, Europe and Vatican put together
3) It has the greatest collection of rare antiques (far more than Vatican)
4) It was responsible for helping Jefferson frame the Declaration of Independence. It fought alongside Washington in the American War of Independence. It was also present during the signing of the declaration where 56 members met in Philadelphia from 13 colonies. There were actually 57 members. One extra unrecorded observer was from this organization
5) It played a role in Hitler's defeat in WW-2. This was recognized by Churchill himself
6) Though it has no research wing, it helped Einstien solve the E=mc-squared equation
7) In its "primary area of control", there is no electricity. No TV, refrigerators, computers, etc.
8) It maintains its own history painstakingly. Due to reasons of heritage and legacy, the history is hand-written. Print is never used in any form.
9) It does not have a currency. All transactions are based in Gold. It uses other currencies in some transactions
10) Throughout its history it has helped several oppressed peoples rise against tyrants.
11) Today it is a great anti-drug force, destroying and causing great angst to the drug cartel. It uses only revolvers as its arms in trade. It does not believe in AK 47, fighter planes etc
12) Even today, the succession is by primogeniture. The supreme Leader, remains one till death. Thereafter, the eldest male child takes over. There has been only one woman leader (only child) in history.

Now, you have to name this organization/heritage. YOU ALL KNOW ABOUT IT. Internet search is perfectly acceptable for finding out.
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Hint 1 (small hint)

During the 2008 financial crisis, a representative of the organization found three great fraud masters running pyramid schemes. One resisted arrest and was killed in a gun battle. One was handed over to the police. One was convinced to surrender to the police. He surrendered and was jailed, but felt happy that he did the right thing.


Hint 2 (biggest hint)

This is not a conventional organization like a nation state, religious organization, social service, secret service, etc. Yet it is an organization as defined by -

"One or more people with shared values and goals, with a clear vision (stated or unstated), with some sort of hierarchy, and a defined (stated or unstated) method of succession

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.SCROLL DOWN !

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OK. Here is a hint (a give away really).

The organization was started when Christopher Walker, a young man, on Feb 17, 1536, took the skull of his father's killer in his hand and swore -

"I swear to devote my life to the destruction of piracy, greed, cruelty, and injustice, in all their forms! My sons and their sons shall follow me.""

Now can u guess who the guy was?

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ANSWER:

Here is the answer as a lot of you guessed.

Christopher Walker took the terrible oath and became Phantom today in 1536. He married Mirabella Columbus, who was actually the daughter of Christopher Columbus. The current phantom who rules today is the 21st in line.

The third phantom fought and convinced the dreaded pirate RedBeard to start and head the Jungle Patrol. The 6th phantom died by treachery and the jungle patrol chief has been a secret sever since.

The phantom legacy owns a whole beach where sand is 50% gold. There is a jade hut in the middle where every phantom celebrates his honeymoon. He also owns an island - the isle of Eden where lins and deer stay together in peace (lions eat fish). It also has the only stegausaurus family and the only Neantherthal family (of Hzz, Hrzz and Kid) in the world. Amongst his antiques is the cup of Alexander, the flask of Cleopatra. It was found out in the 21st century that one of the artifacts was made by the nails of Jesus Christ.

Some of the notable exploits of the Phantom include his argument with Thomas Jefferson. Apparently, the guy who actually wrote the declaration had goofed up. The goofup was pointed out by Phantom, and t was changed by Chamus. At the first continental congress, Phantom was actually hiding behind the cupboard watching the proceedings.

During the battle with George Washington, Lord Corwallis was surpriused that many of his soldiers came back in a state of faint with a skull mark on their jaws. When he signed the treaty of surrender with Washington, he say from his looking glass a masked man wearing a purple dress on a white steed. This prompted him to say, "Everything will now change. Everything HAS changed." While the statement of Lord Cornwallis is accepted by the British, the reason is not yet officially accepted.

He helped Lincoln abolish slavery, by fighting alongside Gen Grant against Gen Lee. He was responsible for bringing the Potomac under the Fed forces dividing the South.

He was the man who convinced Churchill about the D Day startegy. He presented himself to Churchill as Mr Walker. When Churchill called him "the most remarkable man I have ever seen" and went to thank him, Phantom had disappeared.

The 17th Phantom, when he was young and in college, (before being the Phantom) had a Prof called Dr Albert Einstien, a cranky guy with uncombed hair. Phantom actually game him the idea for E = mc squared.

No one has seen the eyes of phantom - it freezes the blood. Only once, ONLY ONCE mind you, phantom's eyes popped out and could be seen. It happenned when he saw a 400 year young queen suddenly lose her eternity ang go from flesh to bones to dust in a few minutes.

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NOW THAT YOU KNOW, SOME ADDITIONAL FACTS ABOUT PHANTOM !

Here are some more -

How do you know that phantom is going to come (if you are a pirate?). You see a double rainbow in the sky

When Phantom married Marabella, daughter of Christopher Columbus, she was 20 years old. Christopher Columbus died in 1506-07. Phantom took oath in 1536. So she should have been atleast 30 years old. How? Because Mr. Columbus did not die in 1506, but rather in 1520s. He faked his own death to escape political intrigue, and lived a life of wealth, but anonymity.

The great Paracelsus, father of modern botany, found a ring with the skull mark on it. He presented it to Phantom. Along with that he also gave documentary evidence that the ring belonged to Emperor Nero, who used to to sign the "death decree". In 2000+, using genetic technology, it was revealed that the ring was made from the nails of Lord Jesus Christ. The news was suppressed from the world.

Current Phantom's mother looked a lot like Rita Hayworth - with one exception - she was superordinately brave and strong. She took up a job in Hollywood as Rita's double for dangerous scenes. In one scene, a goofup took place and she fell headlong into an abyss. Fortunately for her, a young observer, jumped into the abyss, caught her in midair, and climbed up, using an old cable. His name was Mr. Walker. They fell in love at first sight, and had a baby boy, the current Phantom (No 21)

Once, a group of aliens decided to take over earth. They wanted to "test" the creatures here. They chose a purple and white six legged creature to "test". Then they realized that they were two creatures - a 4 legged white one and a 2 legged purple one. How to find which one was more intelligent? They presumed it was the purple one - after all, if it was the white one, HE would be carried by the purple one. So they tested phantom with all sort of weapons like blasters and laser rays. Phantom, single handedly beat them all. They got scared. They thought - "if a SINGLE AVERAGE creature was this strong, better not mess around with them. They left earth for ever. This story was told by Old man Mozz to some children. One child asks, "Isn't it lucky that they chose phantom as the person to test?"

The great grandson of the current phantom, will become the 24th phantom. He will be in a new city, and will fight an evil corporation out to rule the world. Don't believe me? Check out Phantom 2040

There was only ONE female phantom, Julie Walker. While all phantoms had a horse and dog, she had a horse and cheetah.

Choices, Life Choices !

Choices, Life choices - A few weeks ago, I came across an interesting book - The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar. A blind professor (of Indian Origin) at Columbia, she has devoted her lifetime on studying and understanding how people make different choices. There is a very interesting TED talk (www.ted.com) by her, where she explains beautifully through examples on choices.

The favourite example for me remains her experience in Japan, where she requested for Green Tea with Sugar in a Japanese restaurant. Japanese do not add sugar in their Green Tea and so the waiter did everything he could to not serve Green Tea with Sugar. When she insisted, the manager of the restaurant came back and said that the restaurant did not have any sugar ! However, when Sheena substituted her order with coffee, the restaurant promptly served it along with a sachet of sugar !

For me as well, the last few months have been one of introspection into what I wanted to do. When I left my previous organisation, I had a choice of either joining a PE backed retail buyout in India or going back overseas with a consumer goods multinational. Both by themselves were fantastic options - but honestly, the heart and the mind did not come together on either of these.

Patience is a wonderful virtue - and finally there did emerge an interesting choice - and I have gotten into Microfinance - I have joined this exciting new company called Spandana (www.spandanaindia.com) at Hyderabad.

With a consumer base of over 5 million borrowers, the company serves the underserved in 12 states lending to them as little as Rs. 10000 (US $ 250). In this role, I do think that the heart and the head have come together.

The move to Hyderabad is an interesting one - a city where I last lived in 1992 and we have our own house there. The city has changed irrevocably since then and I do find the Gachibowli area where I am located to be very well developed.

New horizons, new hopes !

Hyderabad - a marriage, an expressway and the gift envelope

Marriage, Expressway and Gift Envelope - sounds a bit like the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but what a day I had yesterday - saturday the 21st November, 2009. It was my colleague's daugther's wedding reception at Hyderabad. Combining this with some work, the day began at 5.45 am when I woke up to get ready to take the early morning flight to Hyderabad. I hate getting up early mornings, but well, this had to be done. I had taken the precaution to do a webcheckin on the Jet Airways, but could not print the boarding pass. My flight was at 7.40 am and I reached the airport just after 7.10 am - officially the time when the checkin closes. I was late and should have given me a warning of how the day would unfold. I ran to the counter, was saved becaused I had already checked in and collected my boarding pass and after the two last and final calls, made it to the aircraft.

Once in the aircraft, the pilot announced that we were 22nd in the queue for liftoff and were on the tarmac for an hour. I dozed off mercifully. The flight was uneventful, had idli-pongal for breakfast on the flight. The pilot made good time and we landed in Hyderabad at 9.45 am.

The Hyderabad Airport, built and managed by the GVK group is an absolutely fantastic airport - great facilities and compares with some of the best airports around the world. It is far outside Hyderabad and thus far the commute from the airport to the city has always been a pain - driving through the Hyderabad traffic. Which is when I noticed that the PV Narasimha Rao Expressway (PVNR Expressway), as it is called, was now open. In the earlier visits, the flyover was being built and I had not realised that this has now been completed.

This is a 11.63 km flyover that goes from near the airport to Mehdipatnam. Mercifully, 2 & 3 wheelers and goods carriers have been banned from using this. The 12 km takes about 15 minutes to commute and apparently cuts down 40 minutes of commute time otherwise through the hyderabad traffic.

I spent the mornings in meetings and had lunch at Shreshta, a very nice vegetarian restaurant near our office followed by some great South Indian Filter Coffee.

The wedding reception was at 6.30 pm and I had planned to leave the office at 6 pm, spend about an hour at the reception and leave for the airport to catch my flight at 9.05 pm. What unfolded was completely different.

Not really knowing what to gift the bride, I had decided to take my chequebook along (and a couple of handmade envelopes, which I had) and thought that the best thing to do was to give the cheque so that the bride can decide what to do. I discussed options with a helpful staff at office, who helped me out with filling the cheque. She did not like the envelope and offered to buy a nice gift envelope. I agreed. I of course had not told her that I planned to leave office by 6 pm.

After my meetings ended at 4 pm, I stepped out to do a trade visit and visited a great supermarket called Balaji Grand Bazaar, which was just amazing - a store in Banjara Hills, open for little more than a year - great assorted, very well arranged - all at MRP prices (no discounts) and the store was packed with customers. Tried also to see SPAR the other store at Panchagutta, but the driver was not able to take me there. Was disappointed, but anyway wanted to reach office before 6. And I reached.

Looked for the staff member who had the cheque - she was not there. At 6.15 pm, reached her, who said that she is on her way back and said - 10 more minutes. At 6.40, I was panicking - no sign of her. I wanted to spend sometime at the wedding reception before heading out to the airport at 7.45 pm. I rang her up again - she said, still stuck in traffic - 10 more minutes. Which is when I decided to leave the office - wrote out another cheque and used on of the envelopes that I had brought along.

We left office at 6.45 pm - the drive to the marriage hall was to be 20 minutes. The traffic jam was just immense and we ultimately reached the place at 7.45 pm. I was really fidgety during this time and tried to switch flights to the next one. Could not succeed. I decided then and there that it was really important for me to spend some quality time at the wedding reception - having come all the way from Mumbai. I decided to stop worrying about my flight.

With that attitude, I reached the venue, spent some good time with my colleague and had my dinner and left the marriage hall at 8.30 pm - mind you , my flight was at 9.05 pm. I had no boarding pass and knew that I will miss the flight. There was another one at 9.50 pm - which I said I would try. Else, I was quite prepared to stay overnight at the Novotel and take an early morning flight back.

I reached the airport at 9.15 pm, well past my flight departure time. I just discovered that the aircraft was still at the airport and had been delayed. With adrenalin racing, I rushed to three Kingfisher counters, before being allowed to board the aircraft. One of the counter girls was asked to escort me and I had to rush through security. Rushed through and went to the gates. I had two bags with me - my backpack and the laptop bag. The time was 9.30 pm. At the gate, the security woman told me that my laptop bag had not been stamped by the security at the scanning machine and sent me back, saying that get it stamped. I spotted a kingfisher employee who offered to escort me back to to the security. The airline staff were now panicking - since I was now delaying the flight. One of the airline staff told me to put the laptop bag inside my backpack and I had to literally run to the aircraft.

Whew - what a day it had been. I finally reached home near midnight - had a bath and collapsed into a deep sleep.

What can I say ? Despite the adventure, at least I was able to attend the wedding.

Light Pollution

About 4 years ago, I landed up for the first time at Inverness, in northern scotland late evening. My colleague had come to pick me up at the airport. As we drove, it was very evident that the road was pitch dark and there were no street lights at all. I asked my colleague as to why street lights were not installed. He said that they did not want street lights as it would lead to light pollution. That was the first time I experienced Light Pollution being taken up very seriously. I had only read about how lights affect astronomers. So you can imagine how the following article which appeared today in http://www.timesonline.co.uk/ resonated with me. (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article6887233.ece. The picture above is also from the same article from Timesonline).

Read on ! Giri

At the end of a garden path, in a home-made observatory overlooking Wee Glenamour Loch, there is an air of expectancy among a gaggle of astronomers.
Not because it’s a good night for stargazing. It’s not: the skies are leaden and the rain is falling in stair-rods. But here, on the edge of the Galloway Forest Park, locals are preparing to celebrate its recognition as a Dark-Sky Park, an award unique in Europe, that will rank this lonely corner of southwest Scotland alongside only two other areas in the world.
Next month, the International Dark-Sky Association — based in Tucson, Arizona — will convene to ratify the report of its inspectors in Britain. Final tests, which begin tonight in the shrouded hills of Glen Trool, are almost certain to confirm a first batch of readings that registered parts of the vast and lonely forest at Bortle 2 on the international darkness scale.
Bortle 2 is as dark as it gets on dry land; only in the middle of the ocean, where light pollution is entirely absent, could you experience the profound blackness of Bortle 1.
“There will be a little bit of pride. I will be able to say ‘I live in the dark-sky park’ and I’ll push it for all its worth,” says Robin Bellerby, 69, a former headmaster and chairman of the Wigtownshire Astronomical Society. “All teachers are missionaries. This can be a solitary hobby but we like to interest people to join with us and turn their heads up.”
Barring perhaps Cape Wrath, the most remote point of mainland Britain, nothing compares with Galloway for astronomers. Far from large towns and cities — Glasgow and Edinburgh are over the hills and more than two hours to the north — and with the atmosphere cleansed by frequent rain, the quality of darkness is exceptional.
You do not need rocket science to explain why the forest park is special, says Steve Owens, the UK national co-ordinator of the International Year of Astronomy and one of tonight’s three inspectors. It’s simple: high-quality darkness depends on an absence of light. Light pollution from sodium lamps in the city “is a terrible spoiler for astronomers”, he said. “On the clearest night in London you might be able to pick out only 200 stars.”
In Galloway Forest Park about 7,000 fill the sky. Weather permitting.
Sheltered by a stand of pines near the small town of Newton Stewart, Dr Bellerby and his friends feel the benefit. The observatory sits on the edge of 320 square miles of parkland in which there are only 414 “points of light”, or houses. When the Forestry Commission asked householders for their help in the dark-sky campaign, all but three agreed to douse unnecessary lights. It probably helps that, according to legend at least, astronomy is a secret passion for many locals.
A couple of years ago, sensors that count vehicles registered a surprisingly high volume of traffic heading into the forest park in the darkest hours of night. The local constabulary, alerted to possible foul play, descended on a car park by Clatteringshaws Loch. They found not drug dealers or sheep rustlers but a group of guys in cagoules and clutching Thermos flasks, their telescopes trained on the Crab Nebula.
But not tonight, as the rain clatters on the observatory roof. “Won’t see anything, I’m afraid,” Dr Bellerby says, with the cheery demeanour of a man for once looking forward to a good sleep. Last Wednesday, “a lovely night”, he had whiled away the evening totting up the man-made objects he could see above his head: two American military satellites; two pieces of Russian rocket; the International Space Station — “that’s bloody large” — and a communications contraption. But the real joys are the heavenly delights: the Milky Way, Jupiter or even the Northern Lights.
“I never saw it for a couple of years,” Dr Bellerby said. “Then a neighbour rang me. He said, ‘Get into your garden now’. And there it was, in all its glory, from west to east and following the coast north. Extraordinary.”
The International Dark-Sky Association will deliver its verdict on November 16 or 17. Until then, the world’s only dark-sky parks remain Natural Bridges, Utah, and Cherry Springs State Park, Pennsylvania.

Bookstores and Library musings on a Diwali morning

Its early morning on Diwali day in October 2009 and as I wait for the kids to get up - we have to go to a temple today and visit our parents, I came across this article on Shakespeare & Company, the venerable bookstore in Paris (I love this store) (see link - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/holiday_type/travel_and_literature/article6874825.ece) - just prompted me to think about some of the world's greatest bookstores.

Reading maketh a man - said Francis Bacon and some of these bookstores have made reading and browsing such a great pleasure.

Until the mid 80's, my only exposure to great bookstores was Higginbothams on Mountroad in Chennai. Regular visits to Higginbothams and spending hours there was a monthly pastime. The other pastime was to visit the British Council Library also on Mountroad and the Central Library at Egmore also in Chennai. Another favourite place was Oxford bookstore next to USIS near the Nungambakkam flyover. I grew up on these places.

In the mid 80's came Landmark bookstore in Chennai in Nungambakkam. This was an alien concept to all of us, but it opened my eyes to what a modern bookstore can be.

When I moved to Hyderabad in 1991, I discovered Walden opposite Amrutha Mall in Begumpet. It was so spacious and similar to the Landmark store at Chennai - I later learnt that Sriram and Anita (who had set up Landmark had set up Walden as well). My office was at Amrutha Mall and I was still a bachelor those days and to Laxmi (my wife), I was dating the bookstore more than her !

We moved to Mumbai in 1992 and by then the Crossword Bookstore at Mahalaxmi had opened. I had my first introduction to Sriram then (he is now a dear friend). Crossword took the level of bookstores to the next level - a coffee shop in the bookstore, great bookreading events, authors visiting - all added to the excitement. I was sold on it.

We used to live in Churchgate those days and I discovered the Strand Bookstore. What a place - packed with books, it was a such a cozy experience there. Shanbag, who died recently, has created such a great institution.

In the middle of all this, I discovered second hand books as well - the Lake Market in Calcutta, the big book fair at Calcutta and the pirated books sold on the pavements in South Mumbai - were all waiting to be discovered by me. I cherish to this day, the Anthology of American Poems, that I picked up in one of the second hand pavement stores in Calcutta - it gives me hours of reading pleasure.

Subsequently, in Mumbai, we moved to Khar and discovered the Danai bookstore off Linking Road. A tiny place, it was once again very cozy and a great place to visit.

In 1995, when I stayed in London for a few months at Buckingham Gate, I discoverd the One Pound Penguin books. I used to buy these at the Army and Navy Store on Victoria Street. In 1996 or so, I visited Oxford and discovered the Oxford Bookstore. It was a great place and having visited the Oxford store in Chennai, it was a dream come true for me to visit THE Oxford bookstore at Oxford. I have made several trips to Oxford since and never fail to visit the store each time and buy something. Strangely, I have never managed to visit the Bodlein, where a copy of every book published in the UK is said to be kept.

I joined Shoppers Stop in 2000 and discovered that we owned Crossword Bookstores. Sriram and Anita became good friends. I also discovered the challenges of running bookstores. It was a great pleasure to be part of the bookstore revolution in expanding the Crossword bookchain across the country. Sriram is a fanatic. I discovered the power of recommendations and "Sriram recommends" became a brand - those handwritten little white cards with Sriram's personal recommendations. I used to visit Sriram at his residence and that was my first experience at what a good library at home can be - hundreds of books.

The other venerable "bookstore" in Mumbai known to south indians is the Giri Trading Agency in Matunga - which sells all the Hindu religious books. It is an institution for all the Tambrams who want to pick up the books on Bhagvad Gita, or the latest carnatic classical cassette.

Then came Singapore - I fell in love with the Borders bookstore at the junction of Orchard Road - open till midnight - the beauty of this place was the stacks of magazines and people came in and spent hours reading through these magazines for free. I have spent hours with my daugther there. I still remember rushing early morning to buy one of the first Harry Potter books and being interviewed by one of the FM channels along with my daughter. I also discovered Kinokuniya bookstore.

In the middle of all this, came the Amazon revolution - I remember debating for hours while working for Shoppers stop the merits of an e-store vs a brick and mortar store. But what a revolution Amazon has become.

Amazon became my staple at London and almost all my purchases was through amazon - i discovered the pleasure of buying with a click and getting books delivered in 48 hours at the doorstep. But I did not miss the pleasure of browsing through books and magazines, thanks to the ubiquitous WH Smiths all over London. The WH Smith at Victoria Station in London was a favourite haunt, as I waiting for the announcement of the next train home. Waterstones on Oxford street was also a favourite, but frankly, it did not have the same charm as some of the others that I visited.

The other favourite place to pick great books for a Pound or so are the Charity shops in London, where people give away books. These books are sold by the charity shops for a song. (The charity shop concept is fantastic in London - Different charities have set up highstreet stores, at concessional rentals and manned by volunteers. People give away different things to these stores - books, cutlery, unwanted gifts etc. These charities then sell these stuff at rock bottom prices with the proceeds being used for the charitable purpooses. Very green as well, since it recycled stuff).

I was always told about Hatchards' at Piccadilly square as the oldest bookstore in London, but never managed to visit in the years that I lived there.

In 2007, we had a great holiday in Paris and this was when I managed to finally see Shakespeare & Company, the venerable bookstore, across from the Notre Dame Cathedral. George Whitman has created an institution. A two level store, tiny though, as you climb the stairs, you see this sign which says - "Be Kind to Strangers, lest they
be Angels in Disguise". I have lots of photographs of me and the kids at the store. Its easy to fall in love with this. On a bright summer day, having a coffee on the Parisian sidewalk outside Shakespeare & Company is indeed fantastic. Just a few yards away from Shakespeare and Company is the Latin Quarter, where the narrow streets with its colourful merchandise make for a great visit.

Sadly, after coming back to Mumbai, I have not had much time to visit bookstores, other than the Crossword bookstore at Inorbit,which frankly has deteriorated. I now buy all my books on the web mostly through Indiaplaza.in, where I am a member or through Flipkart.

This summer, when we holidayed in the US, I discovered two great stores - the first was the famous Barnes & Noble on Fifth Avenue, billed as the largest bookstore in the world. Great store and you can spend hours there.

But the other great bookstore, an institution, that I got to visit was the Harvard Bookstore at Harvard Square. We had driven into Boston from NJ that afternoon and were intending to stay in Boston until the following afternoon and we had a list of things to see - Harvard, Whale watching at the Boston Harbour and the Walden Pond. We checked into one of the hotels outside Boston. The reception told us that there is a Red Sox game on that evening and tickets were available. I wanted to go to the game. Was vetoed - so we decided to spend the evening at Harvard. We drove to Cambridge and parked our car a distance away from Harvard and had a nice pleasant walk to Harvard. Spent a little time on the Harvard steps - talking to my kids and hoping to inspire them to come there someday. We walked around Harvard square and saw the bookshop. We spent a while browsing the store and picked up a book as memory of having been there. (I think i still have the cash memo somewhere !). By then it was late evening and we decided to have an Indian meal - I was sure that there will be some Indian restaurants around - we discovered Bombay Club - a great restaurant, which served everything from Dosas to a full meal. It also served Pani Puris as an addon during the meal ($5 unlimited for the panipuris). We sauntered after dinner and drove back to our hotel. It was a great evening - very well spent.

It is such a pleasure to visit these bookstores. I ensure that I have a book purchased from each of these places. I dont read too much these days, but my wife shudders everytime I buy another of the books - she screams - "but you dont read them fully Giri". I remind her that a booklover books does not necessarily to read them fully and it is quite common to read a few pages only. And she is also exasperated by my habit of reading 3-4 books at a time, all half finished. We have given away lots of books to charity, as part of my wife's spring cleaning.

A couple of years ago I discovered http://www.goodreads.com/, where you can tell your friends what books you have read and write your own reviews. Sadly, I have not been able to keep this updated.

I have been watching the rapid progress of Kindle from Google - I have yet to discover what it means to download an e-book and read on Kindle. I shudder at the thought of not having a book that I can thumb through, leave a bookmark, but I do recognise the convenience of an ebook.

I discovered audio books - though I have not had listened to an audio book for any of my reading, it meant a lot to my son, who fell to sleep every night listening to Horrid Henry on a tape.

Google has spoken of this great project of digitising all the books - I am a great supporter of the idea - it can make the books so accessible to all. I also love the Google (or is it Amazon ?) of reading inside a book, where you can get a glimpse of a chapter.

In my years at Diageo, I discovered Library Bars, where you could read a book over dinner and a cigar over a drink and some billards as well. And of course, the million airport lounges, where you read all sorts of things. I love the Airport bookstores as well - today I find the Landmark bookstore at the Hyderabad Airport very well stocked.

I am also beginning to be fascinated by the Twiter novels (@epicretold) and by SMS books. A few years ago, in Singapore, as part of a Guinness promotion, we got our Guinness drinkers to write a book - different people wrote up the different chapters over a 3 month period and a motely, funny book emerged. So much for innovation in books, publishing et al.

Two weeks ago, I was a panelist at an Economist CFO Seminar and on the panel were Sriram and I. While I was dryly talking on the topic, here was Sriram quoting from various sources and linking it up to what makes a great CFO. The man truly lives books.

So thats it guys and my love for books and bookstores.

Happy Diwali - this certainly is a great way for me to begin a Diwali morning, though my wife is reminding me every minute to get ready to go to the temple.

Pi(e) Day ?

From www.timesonline.co.uk

From Times Online

March 13, 2009

Try a slice of the irrational on Pi Day

Mike Harvey, Technology Correspondent

It's time to get irrational. Tomorrow is Pi Day, when mathematicians will gather to celebrate the mystery of science's most famous strange number — Pi.

Pi, or the Greek letter π, starts with 3.1415926535 . . . ad infinitum without repeating. It is the figure obtained when the circumference of a circle is divided by its diameter, and it cannot be expressed as a fraction, making it an irrational number. Computers have calculated it to more than one trillion digits past the decimal point.

March 14 has been celebrated as Pi Day for more than 20 years after Larry Shaw, a physicist at the San Francisco Exploratorium science exhibition, decided to start it as a "geek holiday". The event has snowballed into an international phenomenon, with Pi parties and educational events in many different countries.

The symbol for Pi was first used in 1706 by William Jones, but became popular after it was adopted by the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler in 1737. Pi has intrigued and exasperated mathematicians and scientists for milleniums — how can such a simple concept as the circle be so difficult to pin down? Pi goes beyond geometry, it is a basic tool in architecture and is used to calculate economic statistics and a wide range of other complex computations.

Times Archive

• 1961: "Pi" can never be worked out; 10,880 decimal places by computer

Related Links

• Sexy maths: A number-munching celebration

• UK education gets A* for defeatism

At the Exploratorium tomorrow at 1.59pm a parade of people will process approximately 3.14 times around a shrine to Pi — and then eat pie. The day is also celebrated in schools and the US Congress has recognised it officially as a way to encourage maths and science education.

For devotees, there are Pi plates for your piece of pie, Pi T-shirts and even a limerick competition at www.piday.org .

At Pi parties, people will compete to recite as many decimal places for Pi as possible. They will need to show some endurance if they are to beat the world record held by Lu Chao, a 24-year-old graduate student from China, who took 24 hours and 4 minutes to recite to the 67,890th decimal place of Pi without an error.

Members of the World Federation of Pi will be logging on to the website mathematicianspictures.com to watch a giant Pi symbol drop down like the crystal ball in Times Square on New Year's Eve.

Visitors to www.piday.org bear witness to the fervour Pi can engender in those who like numbers Summer commented: "It makes me so happy, the possiblitly of an infinite number inspires me. It makes me feel like my dreams are infinite. I love math, and Pi is a real inspiration."

Erin wrote: "Pi is a magical loophole in our assumed and intuitive structures."

Joe said: "It's yum."

Jam Today

From www.timesonline.co.uk.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/real_food/article5810163.ece

From The Times

February 27, 2009

How to beat the M&S 75p jam sandwich

Marks & Spencer's jam sandwich went on sale yesterday. But surely it's possible to make a better one yourself at home?

Will Pavia

At 6.32pm last Thursday I held in my hand the finest jam sandwich ever made. A few people witnessed this event, and photographs were taken, but by 6.40pm the sandwich had disappeared. Sandwich aficionados may wonder why such an important sandwich was not preserved for posterity, or at least for long enough to verify its greatness. All I can say is that it was truly a sandwich of unsurpassed quality, and that nearly six hours had passed since lunch.

The quest to construct the perfect jam sandwich began when Marks & Spencer announced the introduction of 75p jam sandwiches, in a ploy to harness the common recession-induced nostalgia for cheaper pleasures. After years of profligate prawn sandwich eating, the nation would turn to a more innocent sandwich from a bygone age. As promised, these arrived on shop shelves yesterday, prompting questions such as: “Do you think we were born yesterday?”' and “Don't you think we can jolly well make our own jam sandwiches for that kind of money?”

Larger questions were emerging, too. What is a jam sandwich? Is it perfectible? Is there an ideal, a Platonic form, a jam sandwich in comparison to which all those triangles in M&S branded cardboard are but flickering shadows on the cave wall?

“This isn't entirely clear,” says Roger Crisp, a professor of philosophy at St Anne's College, Oxford. “At Parmenides 130, Socrates says that things such as hair, mud, and dirt ‘are as we see them to be' - so no need to postulate a form. I doubt there'd be such a specific form as the form of ‘jam sandwich', anyway. Surely we could make do with one for jam, and one for sandwich, since a jam sandwich isn't like an omelette; its ingredients are mixed, not compounded. But the person who is good at making jam sandwiches must have his or her eye on some forms or other.”

Related Links

• Dan Stevens's white bread

• Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's raspberry fridge jam

Could the perfect jam sandwich ever be achieved? Professor Crisp is blunt. “You'd never create the ‘perfect' jam sandwich,” he writes, “as physical objects always fall short of the form in various ways.”

Perhaps it was impossible, perhaps I was tilting at bread-and-jam windmills. Still, there are two types of people in this world: the people who think about making jam sandwiches, and the people who make jam sandwiches. I think; therefore I would jam.

I board a train to Axminster, on the eastern border of Devon. A taxi driver drops me off in a lay-by on top of a ridge 20 minutes out of town. Walking down the rutted lane you can just make out the sweep of the valley, the far ridge covered with bare trees that stick up into the sky like whisks, a white farmhouse far below.

River Cottage Farm belongs to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall: foodies from across the land make pilgrimages there to gut rabbits and forage three-course meals. The great man himself is out - perhaps roaming the countryside drinking birch sap and flambéing water voles.

Instead, Project Jam Sandwich brought together Pam “The Jam” Corbin, a giant of modern fruit preserving, and Daniel Stevens, a rising star of British baking. Stevens, 34, works as a chef at River Cottage Farm; Pam runs ‘Preserving Days' at the farm, works as a jam consultant and judges at competitions across the country.

We begin with an ideas meeting in the farm's converted barn house. “I definitely consider my bread to be a carrier for Pam's jam,” says Stevens.

Corbin had been up all night, her mind like a maslin pan on a stove top, boiling with ideas. M&S is using strawberry jam, a populist but limited strategy in her opinion, as she finds strawberry jam rather insipid. There were more possibilities with raspberries. She had a tub of them in her freezer, picked in a field outside Lyme Regis last summer.

“The jam can't be too soft,” she says. “Otherwise it's going to stain the bread.”

“I think maybe brown flour,” says Stevens. There is silence. “I think white,” says Corbin. “Soft white.”

I fear it could turn nasty: a clash of creative temperaments, baker on jam-maker, to match those fabled confrontations between Gordon Ramsay and Marco Pierre White. But Stevens simply says: “OK, white. I will do it with milk as well to make it extra soft and extra light.” Later he tells me that it is a mistake to cross a woman who works with boiling syrup.

He goes straight to work, making “sort of a safety loaf, in case we run out of time on the main one”. Then we repair to the cottage kitchen to make a more considered dough on Fearnley-Whittingstall's knife-scarred wooden table. Stevens's feeling for dough came to him in his early 20s. “I was a bit of a dropout, living at my mum's house, delivering pizzas,” he says. To make himself more employable, he taught himself to cook. After some catastrophic yeast-based experiments, he found his vocation.

We stretch our dough on the table, pushing it apart, sinuous cords emerging like guitar strings. “See the strings of gluten?” says Stevens. He pulls it back together again. Hands flat on the table, palms up, he scissors his hands together beneath it, setting it spinning. The top of the dough swells upwards, growing smooth and round like a balloon filling with breath.

Stevens is in a good mood. “I'm pleased with this,” he says, putting the dough in a proving basket and wrapping it with a ripped binbag to keep it airtight.

Then he stands aside for Corbin. Covered in jam sugar, her raspberries are left to stand for a few minutes. Their juice draws into the sugar, forming translucent red sugar crystals, a mountain of rubies that she pounds into a sludge and places in a maslin pan on the stove.

“In commercial jam you need a minimum of 60 per cent sugar, that's what preserves it,” she says. “I'm using 55 per cent, for more taste.”

Corbin, now 54, and needless to say, extremely well preserved, has always made jam, but 20 years ago she turned professional. She bought a redundant farm building, turned it into a jam factory and began producing three thousand jars a day. After winning almost every award in the business she sold up to work as an adviser.

As “The Jam” lines up six oven-warmed glass jars on the table like shot glasses and fills them to the brim, Stevens races back into the kitchen, pulls his dough out of the proving basket, pays it various compliments, scores the top with a razor blade and slides it into the oven. He grabs a spray bottle, the sort gardeners use, yanks open the oven door and begins squirting the loaf as it bakes. Clouds of steam hiss out from the base of the rising loaf; it looks like a spaceship trying to take off. “Keeps the outside soft, but crispy like a baguette,” he says.

Time is running out. It is nearly tea. When can we create the jam sandwich? “This jam won't be ready till tomorrow,” says Corbin. “It needs to set.”

This is unacceptable. I can't wait till then. I am one of a generation that wants jam today. Corbin had anticipated this problem. The night before, she had crept out of bed and made a jarful. Now she pulls it from her bag and places it on the table very carefully, as if it is the Holy Grail itself.

As for the bread, the loaf has risen beautifully, but it needs to cool. “Otherwise when we cut it, the slices will be doughy,” says Stevens. We have to use his safety loaf. I cannot help but look at the fat loaf cooling on the windowsill and think of what might have been. What was it that Professor Crisp said? Physical objects always fall short of the form in various ways.

Then I consider the example of a certain 18th-century earl. If John Montagu had been stopped by every setback, surely he would never have invented the sandwich.

Stevens's safety loaf is still a magnificent piece of baking. He saws it into neat slices, we spread the best two with butter. Corbin applies jam. “It needs to be within the border of the crust,” she says.

Nerves jangling, we lift the second slice and lower it on to the jammed bread. It must have felt like this when they positioned the primary mirror inside the Hubble Space Telescope. It sinks into place. Houston - we have a sandwich! We stare in wonder at our creation. Then I eat it.

The bread is fluffy, with a hint of fermentation, rich and soft like the smell of sherry. Then jam explodes, as if one is eating raspberries loosened from their tiny white cones in a field in July.

It was the perfect jam sandwich. But am I really any closer to understanding what that is? I consult Professor Crisp once more. What is a jam sandwich? I ask him.

“Two pieces of bread with jam in the middle,” he replies. “I don't think ‘open sandwiches' are really sandwiches.”

Frappucino Recession

I saw this interesting article in the Sunday Times, October 26, 2008. Reproduced below.

From The Sunday Times

October 26, 2008

Sunk in the sloppy mess of the Frappuccino recession

The more Starbucks a country has, the worse its economic crisis. Where lies the link between coffee and greed?

Daniel Gross

Remember the once-fashionable McDonald’s theory of international relations? The thinking was that if two countries had evolved into mass-consumer societies, with the middle classes able to afford Big Macs, they’d generally be able to find a peaceful way of adjudicating disputes. In other words, they’d sit down over a Happy Meal to resolve their issues rather than use mortars.

The recent unpleasantries between Israel and Lebanon, which both have McDonald’s franchises, put paid to that reasoning. Still, the Golden Arches theory of realpolitik was good while it lasted.

In the same spirit, I want to propose the Starbucks theory of international economics: the higher the concentration of expensive, faux-Italian Frappuccino joints in a country’s financial capital, the more likely the country is to have suffered catastrophic financial losses.

Think about it. The economic crisis has its roots in sub-prime mortgages and a credit crisis. If you could pick one brand name that personifies these twin bubbles, it has to be Starbucks. The Seattle-based coffee chain followed new housing developments into the suburbs and exurbs, where its outlets became pitstops for estate agents and their clients. It also carpet-bombed the business districts of large cities, especially the financial centres, with nearly 200 in Manhattan alone.

And frothy Starbucks treats provided the fuel for the boom – the caffeine that enabled the Wall Street and City boys to stay up all hours putting together deals, and helped mortgage brokers work overtime as they processed dubious loans for people who couldn’t really afford them. It’s no accident that Starbucks based many of its outlets on the ground floors of big investment banks. (The one around the corner from the former Bear Stearns HQ has already closed.)

Like American financial capitalism, Starbucks took a great idea too far (quality coffee for Starbucks, securitisation for Wall Street) and diluted the experience unnecessarily (sub-prime food such as egg-and-sau-sage sandwiches for Starbucks, sub-prime loans for Wall Street). Like so many sadder-but-wiser building developers, Starbucks operated on a philosophy of “build it and they will come”. Like many of the humiliated Wall Street and City firms, the coffee company let number-crunching get the better of sound judgment: if the waiting time at one Starbucks was more than a certain number of minutes, the company reasoned that an opposite corner could sustain a new outlet. Like the housing market, Starbucks peaked in the spring of 2006 and has since fallen precipitously.

America’s financial crisis has gone global in the past month, spreading across Europe and Asia. Why? Because many of the banks feasted on American sub-prime debt and took shoddy risk-management cues from their US cousins. Indeed, the countries whose financial sectors were most connected to the US-dominated global financial system have suffered the most.

What does this have to do with the price of coffee? Well, when you start poking around Starbucks’s international store locator, some interesting patterns emerge. At first blush, there’s a pretty close correlation between a country having a significant Starbucks presence, especially in its financial capital, and huge financial cockups. Take the UK, which has had to nationalise the odd bank (698 Starbucks). Or take just London, which in recent years has been the wellspring of many toxic innovations and a hedge-fund haven (256 Starbucks).

In Spain – now grappling with the bursting of a speculative coastal real-estate bubble – the financial capital, Madrid, has 48 outlets. In Dubai, 48 Starbucks outlets serve a population of 1.4m. And so on: South Korea, which is bailing out its banks big time, has 253; Paris, the locus of several embarrassing debacles, has 35.

But there are many spots on the globe where it’s tough to find a Starbucks. And these are precisely the places where banks are surviving, in large part because they haven’t financially integrated with banks in the Starbucks economies.

In the entire continent of Africa, I count just three Starbucks (in Egypt). We haven’t heard much about bailouts in Central America, where Starbucks has no presence. Argentina, a pocket of relative strength, has just one store. Brazil, with a population of nearly 200m, has a mere 14. Italy hasn’t suffered any significant bank failures, in part because its banking sector isn’t very active on the international scene. The number of Starbucks there? Zero. And the small countries of northern Europe, whose banking systems have been largely spared, are largely Starbucks-free (two in Denmark, three in the Netherlands, none in Sweden, Finland or Norway).

So, having a significant Starbucks presence is a pretty important indicator of the degree of connectedness to the form of highly caffeinated, free-spending capitalism that got us into this mess. It’s also a sign of a culture’s willingness to abandon traditional norms and ways of doing business in favour of fast-moving American ones. The fact that Starbucks or its local licensee felt there was room for dozens of outlets where consumers would pay for expensive drinks is also a pretty good indicator that excessive financial optimism had entered the bloodstream.

This theory isn’t foolproof. Some places with relatively high concentrations of Starbucks – such as Santiago, Chile (27) – have been safe havens. Russia, which has just six, has blown up. But it’s close enough.

So if you’re looking for potential trouble spots, forget about the Financial Times or the Bloomberg terminal. Just look at the user-friendly Starbucks store locator.

The next potential trouble spot? I’ve just returned from a week in Istanbul, Turkey, a booming financial capital increasingly tied to the fortunes of western Europe. There are so many Starbucks that I gave up counting (in fact, 67 of them). I have no plans to move my money there.

Daniel Gross is the Moneybox columnist for Slate.com and business columnist for Newsweek

Movies

There have been some good movies in India lately and I have had fun with the family watching them.

Two recent wonderful movies that I saw were Mama Mia and Rock On.

We had seen Mama Mia in London as a play - a wonderful play with lots of ABBA music. I remember it to have been somewhat lewd, given the theme where the bride is trying to find out which one of the three men are her father. Therefore, when the movie was released in Mumbai, I was keen to see this with the family, with the trepidition that there could be some adult stuff. Thankfully, it did not turn out to be so.

Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan and the lovely Amanda Seyfried are fantastic in the movie. The movie is set in a fantastic greek island, with lovely sights. Merly Streep herself sings many of the ABBA songs, which as you can imagine, we all thoroughly enjoyed. It just reminded us of our days in europe - did feel a little sad at leaving Europe last year to come back to India. A great movie, overall. We all enjoyed it thoroughly.

The other movie which made a huge impact on me was Rock On. A simple story of reunion of an old rock band, it has been very well made with some great music. Farhan Akhthar is great as a singer. It is heartening that there is some maturity emerging in the Indian movie scene with some great quality movies. The movie is clean, and the kids enjoyed it. I must add that i went to see the movie with the kids last week when the wife was away at Hyderabad to attend a wedding. That was my way of babysitting the kids, rocking on with movies, pizza, chaat etc.

We also saw Singh is Kinng, which is kind of crappy, but relaxed movie. You dont know what to expect next and there are some good song sequences shot at Egypt, which is nice. While Katrina is not a great actor, I do remain a fan of her dance.

I do want to see Wall E with my son, Journey to the Centre of the Earth and the Last Lear. The entertainment options in Mumbai are clearly quite a lot.

Janmashtami, Power of Faith, etc etc

Yesterday, or today (depending upon your religious calender), was/is Jamnashtami, the birth of Lord Krishna. It brought back a number of memories.

Since this was the first Janmashtami after returning to India, my wife decided to do it the traditional way - preparing the laddus, payasams, puliyodarai, etc etc. My daugther drew the footprints from the outside door to the altar - symbolic of Krishna walking in. And we did the puja. And like the true sardar who loves his langar, I relished on the food subsequently. My kids then chanted Vishnusashasranamam - credit to my wife for teaching this to the kids.

Janmashtami brought back memories of two years ago, when Ramki (IIMA 86, D2) came down to visit us in London on Janmashtami day. He is a disciple of Krishna Premi and after the satsang at Sundar's place, we asked him to speak. For those who dont know Ramki - he lives in Chicago and spends a significant amount of time on religion. He and his wife are deeply religious and he regularly discourses at temples, marriages and other places in the US. After campus in 1987, I got in touch with Ramki in an interesting way. I was posted in London (the first time) for a brief 3 months in 1995 and on one of the evenings, my wife and I decided to visit Wembley. We were having dosas in a wembley restaurant, when I spotted Ramki with his wife in the same restaurant - I promptly reintroduced myself and went to his house - which was ofcourse a temple - I discovered then how religious the couple were. We have since kept in touch on and off. I did visit him in Chicago in 2004 and true enough I got to partake some prasadam on the cold January evening - because there was some religious event on that day. So, coming back to two years ago, it was indeed a treat for us to listen to Ramki and his wife Saroj on that day. He left us a CD of one his discourses on Rukmini Kalyanam - what a discourse. Felt so proud to listen to this fantastic discourse, while at the same time feeling totally like an ignoramus for not really knowing much about our religion and the scriptures.

Back to Malad yesterday, my wife and I decided to visit the temples. About a kilometre from our house is Bangur nagar, a mini Matunga to us - this area has the Tambrams, the mallus and the bongs with the temples - there is a Ramar Temple, an Iyyappa temple and an Bengali temple. You have a branch of Giri Trading next to the Ramar temple and a shop similar to Mysore concern, where you can buy Ambika appalam, pickles, murukku and a lot of the south indian items. So, as you can imagine, my wife and I feel like home here. So at 10 pm, after the puja at home, we stepped out to the Ramar temple, which was open until midnight for the Janmashtami. and as expected, there was a group of people doing bhajans. We then went across to the Ayyappa temple and there was well, there was a satsangh with devotees singing to Guruvayurappan and Krishna. We also visited a community hall, where the Bangur Nagar charitable association had put up a really large idol of Krishna and prayers were going on.

The night was young and the kids were at home - I had frankly slept through the afternoon (being a saturday). My wife and I decided to go to Gokuldam, the outstanding temple in Goregaon, near the Oberoi Mall. We reached there at 11.15 pm, the temple was not open, however there were crowds outside and we were told that the temple will open for midnight arathis. There was a Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) exactly opposite the temple and we walked across and took a garam masala chai while we waited for the temple to open. So were a few other people. The mix of religion and tradition with modernity is just heady - I could not have imagined having a coffee at Starbucks/CCD just before a darshan a few years ago.

The temple opened at 11.45 pm - there was a large rush and there was also a police bundobust outside. Talk about the power of faith - a really large group of people- men, women, children assembled for darshan close to midnight. Faith brings unity. And we could see that. Such crowds also are an opportunity to put on a quasi-anthropological hat on people behaviour. The first thing that comes to your mind is the way people behave in crowds. In India, there is a lot of jostling, pushing around. Even when the crowd is still. People are always trying to push forward and there is usually little courtesy to let the other person first. As an opposite, I used to travel by train to work in London and for those who know Victoria station – usually there is a crowd standing outside between 8.15 am to 9.15 am or so. The amazing thing about those crowds is that – while there are lots of people, no one is actually touching anyone else. There is a respectful space between the people despite the crowd and even as the crowd moves, people keep that few centimeter distance – so that you don’t really get pushed around. That does not happen here.

Interestingly, this jostling behaviour, the push to be the first one is not restricted to the crowds at temples, where people come from all backgrounds. Yesterday morning, I had gone to my daughter’s school for the parent teacher meetings, meeting 8 of her teachers took a good two hours – the principal reason was that there was no particular order for people to see the teachers, and we all waited around the teacher’s table. This is an international school and you see parents from very well off families, but when it comes to waiting for your turn, it is non-existent. It was almost embarrassing for me to push through and with one teacher, my daughter and I patiently waited, while other parents went out of turn. Fortunately, the teacher noticed that we were not getting to see her and after one of the students, promptly called us.

My mind also went back to the Iskon temple in London, where the crowds and the ambience are quite different from the Iskon temple at Juhu. My wife had proposed that we go there today, but I have turned it down just to avoid the crowds. I see that the cable operator is offering live darshan of the Iskon temple proceedings – we might see that for a while. Though I must admit that one reason I like the Iskon temple at Juhu, is the samosa that you get at the food counters. (There is one sight that I will never forget at Iskon temple, London – someone had brought a large rabbit/hare on a leash. I have never before seen a pet rabbit on a leash – so that memory will be completely indelible).

So it has indeed been an interesting day yesterday – the schools, the puja, the temples, the people behaviour. We slept late, it was past 1 am when we went to bed. This morning has been a lazy start so far. A perfect time to write a blog, which is what I am doing, but my internet connection keeping going on an off, and I am writing this on Microsoft word. When the connection comes on, I will cut and past this out on the blog.

I am looking forward for the rest of this Sunday.