While some random Youtubing, I stumbled upon this surreal buddhist chant called "Heart Sutra". It seems it is a Sanskrit sutra composed by a Chinese Monk. The rendition is "very chinese" but the music is really relaxing. The meaning is too complex to decipher. Just wondering how people in those days used to think so much about Philosophy.

Check out the Heart Sutra by Imee Ooi.

Under/Over Paid?

In comparison to many services which are regarded not so sophisticated, a professional working in MNC/ bank/ conslutancy seems to be grossly underpaid in Hong Kong and I suppose its the same in any big cities.. Consider this

the average salary for an MBA + 2 years exp/ IT guy with 7-8 exp/ investment analyst with 4-6 years exp in HK is around 60,ooo HKD / month which works out to $300/hour for 22 days work and 9 hours/day (many work much more than this)..

and now consider this..

1 hour Mandarin class - $500

1 hour English class - $500

45 mins personal fitness/yoga/blah blah instructor - $500 - $1000

1 hour Massage service - $200 - $1000

Relocation (2 guys working for an hour) - $1700 or $ 850/hour per person..

party planner - should be super duper expensive..

part-time professional maid - $300/hour..

somethings really seem to be way out of proportion and some other things seem to be highly underpaid..

cleaners in restaurants - $16/hours

dish washers - $18/hour

servers - $25/hour

and the hotel industry and the rest. employee association are lock heads over a $33/hour minimum wage bill.. apparently they are now stuck between $27- $30/hour...

wtf

No time to pause on rate hike yet

http://www.livemint.com/2010/08/22215134/No-time-to-pause-on-rate-hike.html?h=D

I was going through this article today on rate hike and inflation, but the problem (inflation) and the popular solution in India (rate hike) and elsewhere in the world has been bothering me for a long time, and as late as yesterday night..

If Price is a equation of supply/demand, shouldn't supply be addressed to control inflation rather than demand through credit for a country like India which is still at the development phase ??

Clearly, we do not produce much of anything, import huge quantities through traders (almost everything), much of which is hoarded most of the time, with exorbitant duties (the total duties on any product in India can reach 25% of the value easily) to benefit a few communities who monopolize manufacturing by intricately teaming up with politicians and setting beneficial policies.

It is so strange the world's biggest steel producer doesn't have a plant in India even though steel demand is expected to increase or is required for the massive infrastructure overhaul. 80% of the country's oil is imported (know the talk of low reserves, but what about low exploration). Coal imports hit a new high of 70 million tonnes last year (even though we have the 4th largest coal reserve), nearly 2/3rds of all the chemicals are imported into India and so on and so forth... obviously with the world demand increasing the prices of a lot of products which are imported in India tend to rise, and the country has to bear the price burnt...

India is one of the highest interest rate countries in the world.. they should certainly have a re-look at creating a low interest rate environment for industries to produce more.. and cater more to the demand.. rather than increasing interest rates and curtailing demand...

no idea if the above make sense.. but till then lets tighten the screw on interest rates...

P == NP ?

Lots of literature has been written over it. Scientist Vinay Deolalikar has claimed P != NP.

Of course people have been really hungry over this problem. Let us wait and watch what happens.

Meanwhile there is a joke doing the rounds : P == NP for N = 1. I would strongly agree with that.

Bullet Santi

Bullet Santi is a simple yet effective innovations from one of the brilliant yet practical brains of India. Looking at these innovations, I sometime wonder as the what the heck am I doing crunching numbers on a spreadsheet..

anyway not to take the credit away from "Bullet" here.. the things I could most associate about "Bullet" before this was

a. the character called "Bullet Basya" from the movie CBI Shankar.. though the movie and the character name sounds cheesy, its one of the great thrillers of all time..

b. Kumar's bullet.. though Avinash had one before Kumar, Kumar's transformation to Bullet made it more memorable..

Jugaad : The best Mobile App ever..

Move over the Apple/ android apps.. here is one of the best innovations

http://economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/08/jugaad

fitness

after a lot of deliberation overnight (during the sleep as well in form of nightmares), I have decided to start attending the boxing classes in the gym.. there are several reasons to it.. but certainly the aim is not to challenge Joe Frasier..

a. classes starts at 7:30 pm and lasts till 8:30 pm... giving enough space in the changing rooms/showers.. (other classes start and end on the hour)

b. probably will pick up some defensive skill over 3-6 months..

c. will not get bored as in the case of DUMB bells.

d. last but not the least, need not wear sneakers..

the whole purpose of publicly announcing it is to stick to the plan..

on the contrary I might end up like Indian politicians with announcements before the polls and slumber after the polls..

a word of caution to myself - i need to make sure i don't get injured.. my back pain has been the biggest nemesis to ACTIVITY and the greatest friend to "COUCH POTATO"...

of high military spending and poor infrastructure..

Annually both Pakistan and India spend anywhere between 2- 4% of the GDP on defence. This has been going on for the past 63 years and given the state of affairs will probably go on to reach a century and probably can even strike triple century..

the total amount would probably run to trillion dollars which mainly benefit the western defence organizations contributing to their respective GDPs. While India/Pak and other developing/underdeveloped nations (african, south american etc) keep bickering and diverting money to defence projects, the lack of basic infrastructure leads to massive destructions YoY (earthquakes, floods, typhoons and other natural disasters) both in terms of human life lost and damage to the GDP...

though corruption consumes more amount than the defence budget in most of these countries.. it might be a good option to just bluffing about having nuclear arsenal and cutting back on defence spending.. somehow nuclear weapons have really been the real preventer of World war 3...

food binge..

during the last two weeks, the stomach has crunched through the globe, with a great tour of Asia.. while during the first week it was constrained to China-Shanghainese.. Sichuanese, Ningbo and Yangzhou cuisine.. it got liberated during the weekend through Burger King at the Shanghai airport.. (almost dying for non-Chinese food) and went on a wild ride...

over the next three days, i was relieved to have some good Vietnamese and great home cooked food..

starting Tuesday the culinary adventure took great strides.. starting with some french and Shanghainese on tuesday, English Curry buffet (was a pain getting thru) and local hong kong cuisine on Wednesday, some great pan-Asia and Indian on Thursday , with Chinese and Thai on Friday, No wonder corporate trainings are a real pain on the stomach and the eyes, which have to fight to be awake post lunch..

the weekend went down with some awesome food again.. Ragi dose on Saturday, followed by Japanese for lunch.. Sunday started with great Akki rotti, followed by a mexican lunch and "anna saaru" for dinner ..

The following would be the ratings in descending order of liking

1. Akki rotti

2. Anna Saaru

3. Chinese fried rice (the best I have had in Hong Kong till date)

4. Fried Garoupa with Cashew nuts

5. Sashimi

6. Fajitas

7. local Canton food ( the atmosphere was like VV puram)

8. Ningbo

9. good old thai

10. Burger King (just for the break it provided)

end result .. 2 pounds++, but no regrets at all..

Happy Independence day

miss the feeling of independence day/ republic days back from the school days..

One of these days NSN will be shifting to Manyata Tech Park and I will be leaving this Infantry Road Office. We go to the North of Bangalore. 30km from my house. Far journeys. Will not think about that now. I tell my mind, to take things one at a time. I'm thinking about what I'll miss....Short 2 wheeler journeys. Going everyday in front of Vidhana Soudha.

Seeing the common junta. Manyata is a "Tech park" with people wearing ID tags. Here, at Infantry Road, it was a pleasure to just walk out of the building and get some good filter coffee and good darshini food. 2 people come to my mind when I think of people whom I see everyday while going to office.

Just in front of the Bangalore High Court, a lady sells buttermilk and flavored milks under an umbrella. She looks somewhat like Sudha Murthy. Was just wondering she must have some financial crunch to work at that age....She was not to be seen for a week....Then she returned yesterday - with her hair dyed. Must have gone to a marriage to some other town.

There is one more character who stands in front of SP Road, dressed like Jesus. People put coins into his hand. And then there is a car with a sticker "The Power of NOW" which sometimes charges me up as a motivational statement.

Hmmm....Change is essential in life.

Inception

Finally got to saw the movie. Took a half day leave (bunked office ;-)..Had not used that word for probably a decade ) and saw it in the theatre.

Interesting movie. Generally audience snores while the actors act. Here the audience see the actors snoring away and still walk back dazed.

Here is a good explanation I got regarding the movie. Reminds me of OSI Layers.

Time and Memory

Time and Memory are certainly inversely proportional.. As time passes we forget things, and in most cases as in India we forgive them as well.. a few exceptions were the Jessica Lal's case and to an extent the Narmada valley protests...

a long list of forgotten things can be associated with the Congress party. They make sure it is done so.. The same will be done with the Common Wealth Games corruption, as would be Lalit Modi... they seem to be systematically attacking the BJP and making them weaker.. while they make every effort to implicate mayawati.. they seem to be forgiving everything associated with Pawar , Lalu Prasad and A Raja

the Congress(I) will eventually be the only standing party in India with a sucky opposition (when was the last did we hear of BJP/CPI).. the dynasty rule will continue (not just the gandhi family, dynasty politics is just the heart and soul of Congress).. and where is the Crown Prince Rahul Gandhi.. ??

Anyways, looks like CWG is something not to look forward.. Still not sure how Kalmadi can't own up responsibility for anything... well again its a Congress legacy..

dont they get tired of the scams they originate..???

The trees and duets

Nowadays the original Bollywood heart and soul is removed from the Bollywood songs.
Songs post the A R Rahman are about "collaborations". Out of the 5 songs, there are about 10 singers - Which is good thing, I agree.

But the good old days where the hero had one voice for all the 5 songs is conspicuously missing. There is no one like a Kumar Sanu or a Udit Narayan or a (ummm whatwashername??) Alka Yagnik. Kumar Sanu was good. Now he has become antique value, if you ask me.

We have songs like this one which I can't understand....Is it really Hindi (or urdu or punjabi or mix) ?

But if I listen to a song like this one or this one there is a bollywood soul to these songs (the duets) and the lyrics are easy as well. The songs now are somewhat different(gosh! I'm sounding old), if you understand what I mean. Good if you purchase a CD of Rs25, you can put it in your car, and remember those student days.