Pertinent Observations

Traditional South Indian Wedding

Day 0 Evening: Groom and family arrive. They are welcomed and the bride's parents worship the groom (vara pooje)

Day 1 Morning: Wedding

Day 1 Evening: Reception

Day 2 Morning: Some pooja, etc.

Day 2 Evening: Groom and family kidnap bride and go off

Modern South Indian Wedding

Day 0 Early Evening: Groom and family arrive. They are welcomed and the bride's parents worship the groom (vara pooje)

Day 0 Late Evening: Reception

Day 1 Morning: Wedding

Day 1 Evening: Groom and family kidnap bride and go off

Today I went to my second ever North Indian wedding. Here is what I gathered from it.

Day 0 Early Evening: Groom and family arrive. They are welcomed and the bride's parents worship the groom (vara pooje)
(of course here there's full fanfare and naach-gaana and all that)

Day 0 Late Evening: Reception

Day 0 Night: Wedding

Day 0 Later Night (technically Day 1 morning): Groom and family kidnap bride and go off

***********************************************************************************************************
At the wedding tonight, I bumped into her. After the initial pleasantaries and confirmation that we had indeed recognized each other after eight long years, there was nothing left to say.

harithekidhas been kind enough to write about the first Bangalore Photowalk on Citizen Matters. In other similar news, Priya Jain, who was with us on the first walk has done a piece in the latest issue of The Bengalooru Pages. Unfortunately I don't think it is availabe online.

Hopefully this footage will result in a better turnout a the next walk which - as I mentioned a couple of days back - will happen on June 1.

A few random incidents I remember from school (mostly academic stuff; so if you're looking for something else you might have to wait)

• In 4th Standard, I remember there was a section of the social sciences text which talked about various kings. After an exam which covered this part, I discovered to my horror that I'd got only 22 out of 25. Where did those three marks go? There was a question that said "write short notes on Akbar". Apparently in my half-page answer I hadn't written that "Akbar was a kind and just king" so Ms. Lauren had cut three marks
• Around the same time, we had studied about the Green Revolution. "High quality seeds, fertilizers and irrigation were given to the farmers in a package" the teacher  read out from the text book. I remember many of us imagining a huge plastic bag containing seeds, manure and pieces of pipe which had to be joined together in order to get the water.
  
• Now I don't recall if it was in geography or in biology, but it was definitely in a subject far removed from mathematics. One popular board exam question (yes, this was in 10th standard) was "explain the differences between arithmetic progression and geometric progression" (this was NOT in math; in any case, we learnt about progressions in math only in 11th, when I was in a different school) I remember there being some section on Malthusian stuff (no we were never told the name of the good priest). So the expected answer to this question had to contain "population grows at geometric progression while food production grows at arithmetic progression".
  
• Sometime in 9th or 10th, some bright classmate happened to ask the physics teacher as to why we use Alternating Current and not Direct Current to power our appliances in India. "Because India is a poor country" was the pearl of wisdom offered by the teacher
• One of the "tricks" we were taught while facing the daunting Hindi board exam was to write a "vishesh" at the end of every question. "This is a way of differentiating your answers", we had been told. For most normal answers we used to just pick a point off the main answer and write it as the vishesh. For the poetry questions, we were expected to pick a figure of speech and mention it. If we found nothing, we were expected to pick a random alliteration (anupraas alankaar - itself an alliteration) and mention that.
  
• We were made to mug up books of proverbs so as to insert a few in the 15 mark essay question. I remember people took essay writing so seriously that most people ended up writing serious exam-style essays in the Hindi Creative Writing competition. I'd written a poem and that was enough to win the competition.
• Then there was this stupid rule that for a X mark question, you must either write X big points or 2X small points. Was extremely bugging. There were some cases where I could find only X-1 points and would lose out, while many others would write the same point twice (using different words) and get full marks

Ok I guess that's enough for one post.  

The problem with all these 1 rupee - 2 rupee offers in indian aviation is that they aren't really that cheap. On top of this you have the various taxes and user charges which come up to some Rs. 1500 (I'm not sure of the exact number). What has effectively happened is that these charges have put a floor on the price of airline tickets in India.

It is very likely that you would've read an economics book where airlines are taken as an example for marginal cost pricing. What this Rs. 1500 of taxes and charges has ensured is that the marginal cost of flying an extra passenger is Rs. 1500. So whatever the airline does, if it is interested in making money, it can't price a ticket lower than that.

How about changing the structure of the fees, taxes, etc. so as to not make it proportional to the number of passengers? Such as keep it as a fixed fee per aircraft or something like that? I agree that in some cases it may not really reflect the way the actual costs are incurred. However, what they help achieve is to push the marginal cost of a passenger to zero. And this might have some important effects on the way airline tickets are priced.

The key here is that the floor is going to actually drop to zero, and we might see some really low numbers in the fare column. This might just result in much higher numbers for the top slabs but then that's usually the inelastic part of the market, so it shouldn't be too hard on them. So this seems like a win-win situation.

The only challenge is to find a revenue-neutral pricing structure so that the current per-user charges can be converted to "wholesale" charges. However, I believe that if the government is sufficiently committed towards making flying affordable for the common man, this change is definitely well worth it.

Given Shah Rukh's affinity for smoking, I won't be surprised if Kolkota Knight Riders decide to purchase a tobacco firm. Then it'll be yet another case of KKR being involved in Barbarians at the gate

PS: Today's was one of the best games of the IPL so far. A low total defended successfully on a decent pitch. An excellent show of fast bowling, a few run outs, late recovery, bad umpiring (Tiwary had an inside edge)

During my recent pilgrimage, three of my four meals were at temples - two at the Horanadu temple and one at Sringeri. For the fourth meal, we took a conscious decision that a temple meal may not be suitable for an overnight bus journey on a bumpy road, so we ate at a restaurant.

The temple meal was kinda standardized. In both places. Steaming hot gooey rice. Rasam. Sambar. Buttermilk. Grey coloured payasam. Actually the Horanadu meal also included puliyogare. And the day we landed up in Horanadu, there were a large number of homas because of which we got an additional jilebi each as a treat.

The food was "all you can eat" in a weird sense. It was as if it was all you could eat in the limited amount of time. So you have these servers who bring rice in trolleys and dump large steaming ladlefuls into your plate. You then need to somehow spread it out and immediately large helpings of sambar/rasam (also steaming hot) fall into your plate. The challenge now is to mix these two hot substances in double quick time and gulp it all down before the next serving occurs, which is after about three minutes. The process repeats itself a couple of times by when you see everyone around you rushing to the taps. And you follow.

I was wondering what is the incentive for the temples to serve good quality food. Consider that the food is free, and that most people who are eating it are unlikely to eat it again for a long time to come. Most importantly, most people consider the temple food to be "prasad", on which you are not allowed to pass negative comments, but have to just consume dutifully. You can also expect most of the eaters to be grateful that you are giving them unlimited food (albeit in limited time) for free, and so they shouldn't crib too much about the quality.

The only thing I can think of is in terms of indirect income. Apart from the time limit and heat, I found the food pretty good, and made a substantial contribution to both the temples, so that they would continue to serve good food in the time to come. If one were to be able to separate out how much contribution comes out of "devotion" and how much comes out of appreciation for the good food, one might be able to figure out the actual impact in terms of revenues of serving good food.

Actually, from the temple manager's perspective, it's not tough to find this out. The situation is extremely suitable for a randomized trial. Given the large number of visitors every day, all the manager needs to do is to randomly change the quality of food on different days. And then observe the contributions made on those days. If this kind of experiment is run over a reasonable number of days, the manager will be able to get a good picture of the impact of good food, and then do a cost-benefit analysis to figure out the optimal quality of food being served.

As an aside, after being used to a wheat-heavy diet, it is tough to get enough calories if you eat rice throughout the day. Going back to my density argument, once you're used to a wheat-heavy diet, your stomach capacity is lower in terms of volume, though there is no change in calorie requirement. Hence, even if you eat a stomachful of rice, it's tough to not be hungry till the next meal. This, combined with the fact that I had to literally swallow the food without really chewing it (thanks to the time limit), didn't do my stomach too much good.

I also have to mention here that the temples at both Sringeri and Horanadu accomplish the Brahmin discrimination in an elegant fashion. Both have segregated dining halls for Brahmins, the only catch being that there are no signboards. The only way you know about the presence of these halls is to be with someone else who knows about these halls (these halls are also away from the main dining halls in both places, so it's tough to find them out unless someone shows you). Men are required to take off their shirts at these halls, so as to display the janavaara (I wore back my janavaara to exploit this arbitrage; and then have been too lazy to take it off). Sometimes you are asked your gotra, and if you can confidently name a Brahmin gotra, you are through.

So the temple manages to discriminate without being too explicit about it. Most of the people being discriminated against don't know and those who are discriminated for are happy to accept the arbitrage. A significantly superior solution than at places like Mantralaya where they make the discrimination explicit blatant.

Has been postponed by a week for political reasons. Given the extrapolated line based on the single data point, it should've been held on the 25th of this month. However, it is election counting day in Karnataka and the cops, etc. may not take too kindly to random unlawful association of people so it may not be a terrific idea to have the walk on that day.

It will instead be held on the following Sunday - June 1. Given that it'll still be summer, and since I think this might be a slower route than last time's, I propose that we begin this walk at 7:30 am. I'll announce the exact route shortly, but I hope to keep this around the Majestic area. Do watch this space.

PS:  Readers and photowalkers are requested to write in with suggestions for routes for further photowalks.

I don't understand why most temples ban photography inside the premises. I mean there are so many strong things that are there inside temples that are "capture-able" that it's almost criminal that photography is banned. My mom says the ban is so that unscrupulous elements don't take pictures and then distort them. If this is the reason, then I think it's better to allow these unscrupulous elements to collect bad karma by distorting images. Anyways.

One signboard inside the Horanadu temple said (ok i'm translating here) - "parents are requested to ensure that their children don't pee inside the temple". Unfortunately, by the time I saw this notice, I'd already seen one other that said photography is banned inside the temple. However, I don't think the temple had done a good job of putting up this signboard in all appropriate places. Before I'd seen one such signboard, I'd already shot a small video of the mangalarathi. It isn't too clear but then I shot it in a "no video" area so ...


Anyway the point of the photography ban has to do more with the Kalaseshwara temple in Kalasa (some 10 km from Horanadu). There, I noticed an unusual thing - a face had been painted on the lingam. I mean, I thought the purpose of the lingam was because Lord Shiva has to be worshipped in the phallic form. Now, when someone goes and draws a head on it, I don't really know what to say.

The thing is this isn't an isolated occurrence. I saw in Sringeri, too, in a couple of places, where a face had been painted on the lingam. I seriously don't know what the painter was thinking. Or was it a conscious effort by the uber-moral Sringeri mutt to de-sex the lingam?

Now that this half-blasphemous title is out of the way, let me get straight to the point. Actually I think a bit of beating around the bush is warranted. When I read Tyler Cowen's Discover Your Inner Economist, I wasn't sure if i would be quoting part of this book on my blog. However, considering that I almost directly applied one of the ideas mentioned in the book, I think it deserves a mention.

The chapter in question talks about art galleries. Tyler tries to explain one method by which you could make that trip more interesting. "Just imagine", he says, "that you are a thief and want to steal one of these paintings. You know you can take just one of them. Which of these do you want to steal?" He believes that thinking this way will allow you to enjoy the gallery much better.

One of the main features in Sringeri is the stone-carved Vidya Shankara temple. There are elaborate sculptures on the outside, most of them representing events from mythology. The last time I visited (16 years back) there was our tour guide who had put detailed explanation of most of these sculptures. Now, yesterday, there was no guide around. And none of my relatives were willing to accompany me around this temple putting fundaes. So I was left with the job of going round the temple for myself figuring out the various sculptures. Question was how I was going to motivate myself to go all round it.

I think I was better equipped than the average wannabe thief at a gallery. The beauty with stone carvings from the Middle Ages is that there is a lot of subliminal stuff. The artist would've somehow slipped in (with or without the knowledge of the guy commissioning him) a few "interesting postures" into his work. For sake of random "decency" most guides tend to leave it out. But you know that there is bound to be some interesting stuff. My mandate for last evening was simple - go around this temple looking for porn on the walls. And in the process capture on camera whatever I find interesting.

I must thank Tyler for giving me this kind of an idea. I didn't really believe that it would work when I'd read the book. But work like a charm it did, yesterday. That half hour was one of the best half hours of that trip. Unfortunately, the guy who commissioned the temple seems to have been extra careful and not much has slipped in. I thought I found a little bit of "stuff". Maybe I was biased in my thinking due to my "agenda" but I think I found a couple of instances of animal sex (animals having sex with other animals), an Amazon-like figure (which I think may turn out to be some Ardhanarishwar or something) and some figurines of women doing yoga which looked very suspicious.

Right now some NED is happening so I'll  upload some images tomorrow. You can judge for yourself as to whether I was unduly biased or if the artist did manage to slip in some stuff.

I'm off on a pilgrimage tonight. My mom, for a long time wanted to visit Horanadu and Sringeri and for some reason she's had to keep postponing it. Finally, taking advantage of my joblessness we are going tonight, along with two of my mom's cousins.

We'll be back on Saturday morning so till then my blog will be on  break (ok I haven't been too regular of late so the break might not mean much). It'll also mean that I'll be off email and GTalk and BRacket and all that.

Nevertheless, I hope to be twittering continuously. I got my twitter to work (the helpdesk got back to me saying that the india short code is facing some problems nowadays so I should use the international thing). This is my twitter page: http://twitter.com/karthiks
And this is the RSS feed: http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/14645914.rss

Around this time last year, I was doing a series of blog posts on delivery and revenue management practices in restaurants in Bangalore. My apologies for not updating on that series for so long.

This morning I had my breakfast at SLV in Banashankari 2nd stage (near the BDA complex; opposite the park next to the complex). Despite being within 200 metres of my school, I don't particularly remember going here too often. This is one of the very old-school darshinis - for a long time, these guys made no dosas. Even the last time I went there (about a year back), they served only idli, vada, kesari bhath and khara bhath. Today, however, I noticed that they were also making masala dosa.

Making dosa represents major progress in the "development" of a self-service eatery, since the space required for the equipment to make it is huge. Apart from this, the more important point is the nature of the dosa business. Idli-vada-chowchowbhath are all "made to stock" items. You make them once and store them, and dish them out as and when there is demand.

Dosa, however, is different in the sense that it is not really storable, at least not if you want to maintain quality (ok now this reminds me of electricity but anyway... ). Hence, unless the demand for dosas is huge (like it is in Upahara Darshini), the dosas need to be made to order. Which means that the tawa will not be used to its full capacity, and could become a burden in case kitchens are very small. A large number of really small places get around this problem by just not making dosas

What SLV has done in order to work around this problem is simple, yet fantastic. They have "off shored" all non-core functions. Anything that can be made elsewhere is made elsewhere, and only the last and most important step is done in their small kitchen. So today while I was downing the idlis, I noticed this van which stopped right in front to deliver idli batter, vada batter, cut vegetables, etc. Notice that all these are "store-able" and "transport-able" commodities.

Thinking about it, if you run a large number of such restaurants in a reasonably small area, then economies of scale can be employed with respect to the back-end process, which can help cut further costs. I won't be surprised if this particular SLV has a few branches, or a tie-up with a few other similar restaurants, and shares it's "back office".

To summarize,

• It should be possible to easily split the process of cooking the items into various stages, such that the "work-in-progress" products at the end of each stage can be easily stored and transported
• If this is possible, only the last and critical stages - which cannot be offshored should be done on site (for example, if you try to bring in idli made elsewhere it loses in terms of quality. things like that should be avoided)
• It should be possible for the back end kitchen to deliver just in time the work-in-progress, so that the restaurant doesn't spend much space in terms of just storing the stuff
• The back end should ideally have a large number of clients (anyways most of the "products" they deliver are commodities) so that they can effectively employ economies of scale
• In future, when real estate becomes more expensive, and restaurants (of all hues) will want to increase their "revenue-generating" area, this offshored model could become popular across all genres of restaurants
• This is not a new idea. I believe stores such as McDonalds are already implementing this. However, what SLV has done is to adapt this to the indian food scenario
• The benefits from off-shoring should be more than the costs of stuff like transportation

The only "major item" now that the SLV is not making is sambar. I'll try explain in a follow-up post about the economics of making sambar and why the SLV is yet to bring this in. If you have any ideas regarding this, please leave a comment.

Last evening, my neighbour, who is also the president of the local resident's welfare association, briefly dropped in to hand over my mother's voting chit. And dropped in a line asking us to vote for a particular party. "This guy has done excellent work in his previous term as MLA", he said, "and we'll all benefit if he is gets elected".

So what I learnt from that little conversation is that the president of our RWA is well-acquainted with this particular candidate. Just to give you a bit of a background, the RWA in our area has been fairly active in its 20 odd years of existence. Most people living around here own their houses, which is an important reason for the RWA to be successful. Some things, such as an annual picnic or sports day, have stopped, but the RWA seems to be doing its core job of representing the area pretty well in terms of general "issues".

Now, there is an obvious advantage in supporting the guy whom my RWA is supporting. For example, if there is any issue for which I'll need to reach out to my MLA (ok the probability of this is minimal but still, ... ) I know that the president of my RWA has a rapport with him and so it'll be easier to reach him. Another thing is that given the support of the RWA here, this guy is likely to do good for this particular locality than some other. Yet another reason I might want to vote for my RWA's choice is that this guy's opponent knows that my area hasn't really supported him this election, so he might not really do much for our locality.

We see that there are several reasons why voting for the guy that my RWA supports is going to be good for me. However, is that reason enough to vote for this guy ? What about his party? I'm not sure if this guy's party is going to give me 5 years of stable government and from that perspective would want to vote for his main opponent. What should my main consideration be as a voter? To vote for the MLA who will be best for me or to vote for the guy who will probably give the best government?

I wonder if this kind of an argument is good enough in the presidential vs parliamentary debate. The main problem with the parliamentary system is that you have only one vote that ties together both your choice for local leader as well as the government. So, in case a particular party doesn't do a good job of selecting its candidate, it might stand to lose. Or if someone is part of a party which is "not good enough for him" he tends to lose again. And I still don't know whether to vote on local or global issues.

Coming back, I wonder if my RWA is doing the right thing by taking a stand on this issue. I mean wouldn't it have been better for them to maintain relationship with all major candidates, and thus hedge their bets? Given what they have done now, it seems like if their candidate loses, we as a locality might stand to lose.

And I'm still wondering who to vote for. This is provided my name is on the list.

PS
My post on BJP's Bangalore South candidates has drawn huge response. Most of the replies, interestingly, are regarding the caste of K Chandrashekar, the Congress candidate from Basavanagudi (under which my house falls). So far, there has been claim that he is from all possible major castes in Bangalore other than Lingayat - Brahmin, Vokkaliga, SC and Kuruba (OBC) have all been taken care of. Does anyone know his caste? (not that it will matter in my final decision. just a "good to know" variable)

In a post I wrote a month back, I had talked about Predicatably Irrational Traffic - in which I talked about a bunch of motorists collectively jumping a signal which they deemed unfair.

Now, having read "The Logic of Life" a couple of weeks back, I'm not sure the heading of that was correct. I'm not sure if we were being irrational there in jumping the signal. I think what happened that day can be better classified as, to use the terminology developed by Gary Becker, etc., a "rational crime".

So I joined twitter. Signed up at least. YOu can find my "microblog" at http://twitter.com/karthiks

However, i'm having trouble linking it to my mobile phone (the sole reason I signed up). The thing asks me to SMS a codeword to some 5566511 number. i've sent the SMS but nothing has happened. the number hasn't been registered. no clue why.

has anyone else faced the same problem? if yes, can you help me out?

(i've checked the twitter FAQs. they've given 2 reasons why it won't wrok. i've checked and i havent' made a mistake there)  

I'd gone to Madras yesterday to participate in the annual QFI open quiz. Went with the usual team - kodhi and madman (aadisht). Missed qualification for the finals by one point. The only saving grace was that we didn't miss any obvious question, so we didn't feel that bad for not qualifying. A few pertinent observations from the trip

• I need to start twitter-ing soon. I think it's extremely useful for long lonely train journeys such as yesterday's trip to Madras. There are so many things you want to tell so many people but no quick and easy way of doing it. Also, it doesn't help when it's early in the morning on a weekend.
  
• There was a massive co-ordination problem. sw_aadisht had initially suggested we go for the quiz and later told me that he is unsure that he'll be available. So I assumed we aren't going unless he confirms otherwise and had happily booked for yesterday's IPL game against Hyderabad. Later it turns out that aadisht has booked tickets for himself and thedilettante and he's somehow assumed that I was going too.
  
  After this act of utter incompetence from aadisht, I refuse to believe that he has a bachelor's in Computer Science & Engineering. I'm sure he did nothing at TIT apart from growing his hair and beard
  
• All is well that ends in the well. I managed to procure tatkal tickets by Shatabdi. This forced spending of an extra 150 bucks meant that I decided to cut costs for the return trip and booked by Rajahamsa (the normal luxury bus) rather than the airconditioned Airavata. It turned out to be a good choice, since the guy next to me kept the windows open and there was a cool breeze throughout the night
• I met thedilettante for the first time yesterday. I approached her and said "I suppose you are MadWoman". In hindsight, I should've done a H M Stanley and said "Madwoman, I presume?". She seems much more subdued than what I had thought by looking at her blogs. Or maybe a tiring overnight train journey had ensured that she wasn't in good spirits
• Saravana Bhavan sucks. It was a full half hour after we were seated that they came to take our order. I'd ordered idli as starter but didn't get it until the onion uthappam (my second main course) had arrived. The idlis were hard and stony, and the uthappam too didn't live up to the usual Chennai standards. And they took so long with the bill that I ended up entering the quiz ten minutes too late.
• There doesn't seem to be a cluster of fine-dining restaurants in Chennai, like we almost do on Church Street. There are many excellent restaurants but the problem is that each is 20 rupees by auto away from the other. So if you go to one place and there is no room, there is no option but to take an auto and go elsewhere. Yesterday, we got turned down by Benjarong and Cedar and finally had dinner at Cornucopia. Food was decent, though the portions were small.
  
• The CMBT concept (bus stand outside the city) is excellent and needs to be implemented in Bangalore too. However, unlike Madras, Bangalore isn't in a corner, so we'll need several bus stands. I think one bus stand each at Peenya, Madiwala and Mysore Road will do good in easing pressure on some arterial city roads. And i'm talking about proper full-fledged bus stands which are connected by frequent buses to each other and to Majestic.
• There seems to be a massive improvement in the quality of TN buses since the last time I had been to CMBT (which was in October). They seem to have learnt that luxury buses can be profitable and have introduced a few on important routes such as Bangalore and Trichy. Interestingly, in Karnataka, most overnight buses are of the luxury variety. I wonder what has caused this difference in the standard of buses. The roads maybe?
  
• KSRTC has responded to SETC's luxury buses by moving further up the value chain. When I was living in Madras (2000-04), most overnight buses between Bangalore and Madras were Rajahamsas (normal luxury). Now, it seems like there are only 1/2 rajahamsas every night, with the rest of the capacity being fulfilled by A/C Volvos (Airavatas). And there seems to be enough and more demand to justify this large number of Airavatas too.
  
• When the bus stops at a dhaba in the middle of the night, I usually don't prefer to get down. This morning, however, I got down and after having emptied my bladder, stood around observing. Most people made a beeline from the bus to the loo (the loo charged 1 buck btw) and then went to the dhaba to have tender coconut or tea. I also saw a few whores (ok i classified them based on their attire, mannerisms, etc.) at the dhaba. I was observing one of them. She too did the usual routine of loo->tea though she didn't arrive by any bus. But she didn't look like she took any tea from the tea stall. I was a fair distance away but i think she just either gave money or took money and walked away. Some commissions I thought.
• The no-traffic travel time from K R Puram bridge to Richmond circle is 10 minutes. This distance used to take upwards of an hour in the afternoon/evening (this I'd observed back when I was at Sabre

She is still an out-of-money option - quite ordinary for most of the time, offering nothing, or mildly negative returns; but once in a very long time you get great value, making the long periods of mediocrity worth their while.

Cross posted at the Indian Economy Blog

Today, on the occasion of my father's first year death ceremony, I discarded my janavaara (sacred thread)

Recently, Tyler Cowen wrote in the New York Times saying that lack of free trade in rice and growing protectionism is not a good thing from the long-term perspective.

IAS Officer Gulzar Natarajan (now with the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation) took him on and elaborated as to why protectionism might be necessary.

I left the following comment on Gulzar's blog. Given that I'm not blogging much nowadays, and I almost wrote an essay over there, I reproduce here that comment in full.

"trade" doesn't necessarily mean foreign trade. it can also stand for trade within the country. and this is essential in order to "send out the right signals".

basic thing is that we need to ensure that farmers receive a fair price for the rice they grow. given that the total demand for rice is increasing, it is only fair that the farmer sees this increasing demand by way of higher rice prices. higher rice prices (as realized by hte farmer) will lead to increase in production which can combat the growign demand.

international trade is one thing. the bigger problem lies with the procurement of goods such as rice by the governments. a number of countries don't allow the farmer to sell to the open market. procurement is highly controlled, and despite the rising prices, the farmer gets none of it. and thus has no incentive to grow more.

yes, a country might ban exports because it feels that the rice available is enough only to feed its own population. however, this shouldn't be done at the farmers' cost. and they should be able to see the right demand for the commodity so that they can adjust.

The "first" Bangalore Photowalk happened this morning. Eleven people turned up (including me). Thanks to Aadisht, Prabhu, Hari, Suvrat, Rajagopal, Baada, Tharunya, Priya, Madhavi and Nikshep for helping out in making this a grand success.

As planned, we met in front of the Apsara Theater at 8 am. I had mentioned in yesterday's email that I'd be wearing a black T-shirt. Maybe people thought it was a dress code, as some half a dozen others turned up in black T-shirts. We started off at a statue of Dr. B R Ambedkar in front of the Apsara Theatre and moved on to the Bangalore fort, where we spent a considerable amount of time. We then walked along K R Road, taking photographs of Vani Vilas Hospital, the Theosophical society and several snaps of the basket weavers in front of BIT.

I'm proud of my timing - the route that I had selected seemed to be of the appropriate length and we finished up at National College circle at the appointed time of 10 am. We then proceeded to the nearby SLV for breakfast.

I have taken a total of 180 photos during the walk. I've uploaded a few samples. I request the others who attended also to upload their photos to flickr, and tag the photos as "bangalorephotowalk". You can find the photos that I've uploaded here. And here is a sample picture (Disclaimer: I'm not responsible for the words on this signboard. This signboard exists somewhere near K R Market. I just happened to photograph it)

I know i'm a bit late on this but I've been incredibly busy all day so wasn't able to post this earlier. The Bangalore Photo Walk kicks off tomorrow morning at 8 am. We meet in front of Apsara theatre (between the theatre and the subway mouth) and then proceed down K R Road.

I request you to be there on time. I hope to commence the walk at 8 am sharp.

I hope to be there by around 7:45 - 7:50. Just to help you guys identify me, I'll be wearing a black T-shirt and black cap.

Looking forward to meeting you people tomorrow. And I need to go charge my camera batteries.

PS: mail me at skthewimp AT yahoo DOT com and i'll mail you back my phone number. Once again, apologies for sending this mail so late.  

Some pertinent observations from yesterday's game between Mohali and Mumbai

• The new Mohali outfit (supposedly designed by Provogue) is a rip-off of the Chennai SuperStars outfit. That garish pink and grey. Though, one must admit that the new outfit did help turn luck Mohali's way. And it's definitely much better than the old one
• They got their team also almost right. They rightly dispensed with the bits-and-pieces hopes and brought in three specialist foreign batsmen. The only guy i didn't really know in the line-up was Sunny Sohal. Haven't seen too much of him on domestic cricket scoresheets.
• Bringing in VRV for Mota was another positive move. Yeah, VRV got taken to the cleaners in one over by Pollock and Tiwary. But he has performed well in domestic cricket this season, and also has good pace. One of the few fast bowlers to do well in Ranji this year (most of the others were just a bit quicker than dibbly dobbly)
• I was multitasking with The Long Tail while watching the post-match proceedings. One moment, they show Preity Zinta hugging Brett Lee. The next moment, they show Sreesanth crying. Having heard about Sreesanth's geelapan, I was wondering if the two incidents had anything to do with each other. Now it turns out that Harbhajan punched Sreesanth.
  
• Thanks to Harbhajan's punch, Mumbai might go down below Punjab in the fair play rankings. Again, it's a Punjoo who has been responsible for it.
  
• Mumbai is slowly getting their team right. Tiwary for Yeligati was a positive move. The only thing left now is to get rid of that Brave Rat (isn't that what "Musa vir" translates to?) Khote and replace him with another batsman. Tendulkar if he is fit, or Rahane. If they want an all-rounder, they could try Gaurav Dhiman, who had opened the bowling along with RP Singh during the U-19 World Cup in 2004
• This has nothing to do with this particular game, but the boundary lines need to be pushed back. Things are way too much loaded in favour of batsmen now.

I was just going through the program list of the classical music season at the Fort High School grounds. What strikes me is that whenever two siblings in the same family are good at this kind of stuff, they pair up and advertise themselves after their town or something.

I don't know who was the first pairing that started this, but now artistes naming themselves in this way has become way too popular. It almost seems like if one person in the family is good at carnatic music, he/she forces his/her sibling to take it up too - so that they can become a duet and give themselves a cool name.

The interesting thing is it's always "X Brothers" or "Y sisters". It's never a brother-sister combination. Maybe "Velachery siblings" doesn't sound that good. Other relationships, too, are taboo. There may be say a couple who always perform together, or a father-son pair who are usually a team, but they don't usually advertise themselves as a team, and prefer to go by their individual names instead. Maybe the lack of elegant names (such as "brothers") prevents them from doing so.

This trend of brothers and sisters is catchign on so much that soon you'll have people deciding to become each other's Rakhi brothers or Rakhi sisters or rakhi brother of a rakhi sister so that they could give themselves names such as this. Maybe the quest for interesting names might even bring in the band culture to Carnatic music (on a more serious note, one of the thrills of Carnatic music is watching people who've never met before getting together and creating music). Interesting times lie ahead.

Anyways here is a list of all the siblings that I found on the program list:

• MALLADI BROTHERS
• MYSORE NAGARAJ & DR. MYSORE MANJUNATH (sometimes they call themselves Mysore Brothers)
• HYDERABAD BROTHERS
• MAMBALAM SISTERS
• PRIYA SISTERS

Ok. There aren't too many. But we are getting to a stage where the whole program sheet will be filled with names like this.

On another note, certain entries in the list read something like "WOWCTB and party". This kind of nomenclature is extremely unfair to the "accompanists" (which is again a derogatory term). The violin and the percussion are as much a part of the concert as what is known as the "main instrument". Just pick any singer. Any singer. And imagine him/her singing alone without any instruments.You get it right?

Not only have they not won any games so far, the IPL team from Punjab lie at the bottom of the heap when it comes to the fair play rankings too.
Another case of cricket imitating life.

Mumbai Indians I mean. Their team selection so far has been inexplicable, and their tactics while bowling even more so.

1. What can you say about a batting line up where the absolute bunny Ashish Nehra (the only runs i've seen him score was the four to win against New Zealand in New Zealand in 2003. That game where Sehwag scored century and rest buckled chasing 199) bats at 9?

2. I've been regularly following first class cricket in India for some 2-3 seasons now. At least, I follow the ranji trophy super league, Duleep trophy and deodhar trophy. Who the hell are Musavir Khote, Dhawal Kulkarni and Vikrant Yeligati? What the hell are they doing in the Mumbai team?

It seems like there is some instruction either from Sharad Pawar or from the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena to include a certain number of sons of the soil in the team. Even then, there are sons of the Mumbai soil who deserve to play much more than these jokers. People like Ajinkya Rahane were on the bench while these jokers played.

3. Bhajji's captaincy was shocking to say the least. He bowls just two overs. Pollock bowls one over short of his quota. And you have people like Khote and Yeligati bowling and gettign smashed to all corners. Clearly, there seems to be some directive to make these guys bowl also.

4. The best thing I can think of is that this whole thing is an elaborate ploy by the team to show that playing just a few stars along with a large number of useless people can do the trick in T20. Yes, Sachin or Jayasuriya might singlehandedly win the odd match for them. But then there are 12 overs to be bowled outside of Pollock and Bhajji. And this is assuming they complete their quota - which may not be guaranteed.

Just so that this doesn't become a Mumbai Indians bashing post, I'll also add that it's a disgrace to the IPL that Rajasthan Royals are playing a guy who won a reality show (Salunkhe). I always knew that team was a bit of a joke but this is too much even by their standards. And I read that ticket prices have had to be slashed by a large amount in Jaipur because no one is turning up. I told you Jaipur doesn't have a cricket culture.