Urgent Help Needed – An appeal

Hi Readers,

After coming across the condition of a young bright man who is currently in hospital, I am using my blog to appeal to you. I request you to help as much as you can NOW!! Let your friends know and act now for you could make a difference to somebody’s life.

The patient, Bala is an employee of a leading IT company. He is suffering from T Cell Acute Lymphocytic Leukaemia (A type of Blood Cancer). He is currently admitted in CMC Hospital, Vellore.

Bala has got a survival chance of 80% subject to proper Donor who can match unrelated allogenic stem cell transplantation (related to Bone Marrow Transplantation).
The estimated cost for this treatment is Rs.70,00,000 (Seventy Lakhs).
The amount is huge and hence every penny would count. Interested donors can either pay by cash or cheque or transfer the amount to the following account

Christian Medical College Vellore Association,
Current Account No. 10404158238
Bank Name – State Bank of India
Vellore Town branch,
Br code – 1618
IDS SCUDDER Road,
Vellore – 632004
Swift no – SBININBB473
Patient Name – Balamurugan Gnanaprakasam
Hospital No. 558129D

Thanks,
Rangarajan

Times are changing indeed

The last few days have been challenging in Pittsburgh. There are wars, battles and street fights that I have to endure in my world. I have been going through the same eye opening experience every morning. Every day when I open my eyes, it fails to dawn on me that it is already quite a while past dawn. There is darkness outside and the birds are chilling out too. The warmer days make the birds chirp happily and it serves as a pleasant alarm ringtone. However, now that the cold days are slowly and steadily making their presence felt, the birds are flying some place else. They are waking other people up and you cannot really blame them for their intelligent moves. So here I am, experiencing what I know is Multiple Personality Disorder. One Me wants to be disciplined, wake up and rush to work. Then, there is this another Me that is busily engaged in an unending battle with the snooze button on the alarm clock. The commitment of Mr. Alarm Clock (AC) is commendable. He bellows out his war cry every morning at 615 am and gets pushed to the limits by that other Me. He is forced to let out the same cry every 5 minutes that confuses yet another Me (say Me 3). It seems as if some inconsiderate pea brained person is creating a racket in the middle of the night. It is sleeping time, for heaven’s sake!! Should I be calling 911 and complaining? Then there is yet another Me (Mr. Nice Me), that reminds me of the day’s work and earnestly appeals to me to get up, trying to make me think of how nice a cup of Masala Tea would smell like …. Mmmh.

With all these battles that are part of parcel of the morning, somehow, when I do manage to shut Mr. AC’s mouth out for the day, I see light at the end of the window, Oops, I am late again. Then, all the other personalities just mockingly disappear. There is just Me (the real one) cursing at the other Mes and moving into a higher gear to go through the getting ready process.

There has to be a better solution to all this, I prayed. A friend of mine, who was also experiencing the same fights with sleep breaking, cunningly attempted to manipulate his body clock. He decided to crash by 10 pm and was hoping to stab his other split personalities and kill them forever. But, what happened is a remarkable story of how Lethargy won over noble intentions. The body can lie in a position parallel to the ground with eyes closed for any number of hours irrespective of the starting point (i.e. sleeping time) as long as there is no pressure to greet the day, when it is actually dark outside!!

As if to answer our fervent appeals and prayers, one day, the times changed, literally. An effective timely solution was conceptualized and implemented for the benefit of one and all. It was impossible to make the sun and earth move differently for the days to get longer or the air to get warmer. Thus, abracadabra, one wave of the brain wand, and whoosh, it is not 6 am that you got to get up. You fool Mr. AC by telling him it is 6 am, but the truth is that is actually 7 am. The Daylight Savings Time Brahmastra has been hurled at the poor alarm clocks across the American nation. We get to sleep one more hour and people like me are shedding tears of joy. Tears of gratitude, as a mark of respect to the mega intelligent souls who brilliantly resolved a problem that threatened to impact basic indicators of life like productivity (!!), commitment to life, mood, joy and what not. Till the body gets used to this new routine and the other dormant Mes that have been tricked for a while, bounce back again, let us enjoy the ‘changing times’ and sleep better. Sweet dreams, folks!

Shipping Independence and Freedom

At a high level, we know how Tsunamis are caused. Earthquake in sea causes the floor to shift its x-y coordinates. This displacement impacts the huge amount of water in the sea. Then Mr. Seawaters goes bonkers, embraces insanity and runs helter skelter, waving around tsunamically, getting way too tall for anybody’s comfort and kills mercilessly. This is a natural cause.

But I am beginning to wonder how such war ships built to travel at ‘unheard-of’ speeds will not anger Mr. Seawaters and cause mini-tsunamis. Imagine the plight of the smaller ships / vessels and not to mention the poor fish, whales or other lives in the sea when the ultra-long ship zips through the sea.

And yeah, the ships are named Independence and Freedom: Ironic, eh? Maybe, I am just over reacting!

Just a thought

It has been almost 1 year since the Mumbai attacks. Going by the progress and the VIP treatment to Kasab, I think Anti-terror and Terror are just 2 sides of the same coin. The heads side can never catch the tails.

In the best case scenario, the head can bite the tail. But the tail shall grow back or poke at the eyes. Seriously, what the hell is going on?? 6 crores for a van and another few crores for a tunnel!!

Also, its time to start defeating laziness & start Twittering such thoughts

Lemon Grass Cafe – case study in CRM

I was doing some research on what Lemon Grass actually meant. The reason behind this sudden interest in lemongrass is a Thai restaurant that goes by the same name. Lemongrass Café, a restaurant in downtown Pittsburgh, serves deliciously amazing food. According to our friend, Mr. Wiki, Cymbopogon (lemongrass) is a genus of about 55 species of grasses. Common names include lemon grass, lemongrass, barbed wire grass, silky heads, citronella grass, fever grass or Hierba Luisa amongst many others.
Once in a while, my colleague and good friend, VK sneak out to this café and order our regular green or red curry with steamed rice. After a few frequent visits, Lemongrass decided to offer us some loyalty rewards. Along with the rice, came uninvited bugging behavior. A dead bug adorned the rice plate. Unfortunately, being non-bug eaters, we brought this to the attention of the waiter, a clean shaven headless fellow. Oops … I meant clean shaven throughout the face including the head, but headless might not be a wrong adjective in the given circumstances. He had almost certainly fought with his wife or girlfriend, and had been kicked in the wrong place. Frustrated with issues like sex, power, money and god knows what else, he looked at VK straight in the eye. Arguments followed whether it was a bug or a rice grain that refused to take off its husky cover!! The rice or the bug was dead and couldn’t testify. A neutral third party was required to intervene. Seeing no solution, VK took out his camera phone and expressed his desire to photograph the suspect. The rice was bugged, we were now getting bugged too and so were the others in Cymbogon Cafe. The bugged silky head (lemongrass is also called silky head, remember?) waiter got more frustrated and began to disapprove of this solution. In a higher decibel level, he announced that photographing could not be allowed. The other customers at the restaurant began to get disturbed and instances like these are always irritants to enjoying a good meal. Mr. Barbarian Waiter with one swift motion of his hand scooped the plate off the table, and returned with a replacement. He asked us to make sure everything was fine this time and of course, if a mike was lying around somewhere, it would have felt redundant. The message was very very loud and clear. Disturbed but determined to focus on eradicating our hunger, we ignored the strange man and went about achieving our primary objective: consumption of the red curry. Call it MBO (Management by Objectives) or Gandhian philosophy, we just forgot about the whole incident.

By the way, Gandhiji had once said, if a man slaps you on one cheek, show your other cheek too.

Some days later, we made an error in judgment. Joined by another colleague who had flown down thousands of miles, from India, we fought the wintry afternoon cold. Ignoring the cold tears that were shed from the skies above, we did not heed the omens. Making our way through the busy traffic, VK and I were determined to treat our colleague to a sumptuous lunch at the best Thai restaurant in town. Guess what, we got served by another dude this time, a bespectacled man with long side burns. Service was ok and we were leaving the restaurant. Going Dutch, we handed out credit cards or cash to the man at the cash counter. This time, the silky head Mr. Citronella was at the cash counter. So he did everything except cooking, I guess. Or maybe he tried to cook steamed rice and insectivised the rice. Anyway, he very politely asked VK if the service was fine. Then, he began to innocently explain that tip amounts reflected the service levels (as if we didn’t know!). With a $9.4 bill, VK had paid $10. The usually, relatively over- generous VK had made a grave error, supposedly. The lecture was an education on waiter compensation structure. That Salary structure of waiters had a small fixed component. The variable components came from tips. Decibel levels, an angry frowned face, attitude problems – everything that we don’t expect and certainly don’t deserve were being exhibited by the psycho. I will add here, that the other Thai restaurant in town, Angkor which has the same owner, sets new heights in hospitality and service levels. Hence, my disbelief was indescribable. But things got worse when the dude with sideburns stood on the side, burning angry words randomly coming out of his mouth, “Why me!!? We work here, you don’t!! Don’t take it out on us!!! What do you know?”

We came out shocked, humiliated, mentally disturbed and emotionally scarred. Yes, we argued back, but is that why we want to go to a restaurant for lunch? The decision to never go there again is logical but somewhere there is a feeling of incompleteness that should hopefully, go away with time. I am still wondering if the interactions were racist in nature or just the result of a sick man, who is in a wrong job. Whatever it is, I want this post to reach out to Pittsburgh downtown eaters so that they are can knowingly pick a choice of their choice. Until then, Bon Appetit

Also, read this post by VK

Peas Pulao, French Fries and Nobel Peace Prize

Nahimani Shantaram and Durjoy Das were having an interesting conversation which, needless to say, got all the more interesting when their conversation was accompanied by regular intakes of tequila shots, that were in turn accompanied (and obviously so) by salt and lime slice suckings. Here is how the conversation went:

Das: So, did Obama really deserve the Nobel? What are the criteria for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize? Hic … I heard that even Gandhiji didn’t win it.

Shantaram: Do you really want to know what happened? My cousin Shanti, the super chef, told me the secret yesterday.
About 2-3 weekends ago, when the G 20 Summit happened here in Pittsburgh, several world leaders had come together to discuss issues of major global significance. Topics like global warming, nuclear energy usage, anti-terrorism etc were being discussed in various formats – the group discussion format, monologue format, silence is golden format and other configurations as well.
Another round of the Patron tequila made its way into the discussion. Hic …

Das: So, what happened?

Shantaram: As world leaders had assembled from so many countries, the organizers had come up with a wonderful plan. Their creative juices were put to use and it was unanimously decided to get top chefs from each country. And guess what, hic … my darling cousin, Shanti represented India.

Das: Wow!! So, what’s the scoop?

Shantaram: Simple, her specialty, Peas Pulao was served. The organizer wanted a brand for each dish. Seeing modern day kings and nobles all around, he named the Peas Pulao dish as Noble Peas Pulao. Obama liked it a lot, and even parceled some for his family. Shanti was so thrilled, hic … that she gave him the Noble Peas Prize.

Das: Chup saala! Tell me the truth, please, please. And lets have the next round for your cousin! Cheers …. Hic ….

Shantaram: Ok. What really happened was that Nahimani Shanti helped the French Chef Monsieur Ratatouille make French Fries. Her accent is such that she calls it pries, ha ha ….
A Swedish or Norwegian spy in the kitchen spoke on the phone and translated her name into English and immediately alerted the Nobel Committee that Nobell Peace Pries has been given to the American president by an Indian delegation.
Sensing the urgent need to act and move on the situation quickly, the challenge was to do something without damaging the reputation of the ancient Nobel tradition. The very next day, the Committee made the announcement. They were convinced about the strategy of blanking the early mover advantage of the Indians. Their cunning thought leadership in handling the situation was mind blowing. Thus, stands the humbled Barack Obama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Tears … Das is crying by now, looking at the empty Patron bottle and cannot wait to share the freak relationship between Peas Pulao, Shanti Fries and the great Nobel Prize with all his friends.

I dedicate the above PJ post to my good old friend, Mr Avik Sinha for his constant encouragement and eggs, err … egging, I mean to make me write something on Obama’s Nobel Prize. Thanks, Ahic … err, Avik!

Onks and choices

The cute little lamb was playing with a ball. It would gently touch the ball with its front leg and get thrilled seeing it roll along the ground. It would then run after the ball to kick it again with its thin legs. The smile on the little lamb’s face made Kumar happy as he watched innocence in its purest form. He stood silently, drowning himself in that indescribable feeling of bliss, savoring the sight of incorruptibility. The lamb obliviously played on, lost in its own universe.

Suddenly, he saw a big man rush to the lamb, kick the ball away rudely and pick the animal up. Kumar was not sure if the man was the lamb’s master or a thief. He was too puny and scared to confront him. So he hid in the bushes nearby and tiptoed behind them. The man walked hurriedly towards his shop. There were several such lambs there. Before Kumar knew what was happening, he was shocked to see blood spraying in different directions after the head was chopped off from the little lamb’s body. One swing of an axe was all it took to separate the present from the past. The man, Kasim, was a butcher and the shop had different lambs, mostly hanging from large hooks waiting to be bought and eaten as some form or the other, in the near future. Rogan Ghosh who was walking by, licked his lips and asked the butcher to cut the little lamb which was still bloodying, into little pieces. The personality of the lamb changed, reminding Kumar that from the inside all beings are the same complex biological creations of God. The big butcher seemed to be oblivious to the blood or the lamb’s pure character. He was stolid and continued to do his job, occasionally blood drops and pieces of flesh flying, as if to attack his t-shirt. Kasim cut the once cute lamb into several small pieces and put it in a plastic bag for Rogan to carry it away.

Kumar was too sad and hungry too. He walked on and stopped at a restaurant called Café Nirvana. The day’s specialty was Lamb Biryani. Kumar remembered the little lamb playing with the ball with the same enthusiasm that his little nephew would play whenever anybody threw a ball at him. But now the lamb was probably at the bottom of a plate, marinated with spices, cooked in oil and mixed with fragrant basmati rice. The aroma of spices was tempting too, he confessed sadly to himself. The lamb pieces in a plate belonged to different such lambs, possibly, he thought. But what the hell, at least the lamb lived and enjoyed its life; it served a purpose after it died too. His mind kept asking, what if only the lamb were big, brave and wild like a lion or maybe a tiger. Then what would Kasim have done?

Then, man would have invented a sport called Hunting and hurled arrows at the animal, hiding behind in a safe shelter. Or bought a gun with or without license and pumped a few bullets into the lion’s heart, heartlessly. A group of 20 people could have tried Lion Biryani too or maybe Lion Steak or Sher Tikka Masala probably. Shikha, his girlfriend walked up to Kumar and asked him what he was thinking. Kumar was pleasantly surprised to see her and described the events and his thoughts. Shikha laughed and said, “Hey, its ok, it is only small animals that man eats – like fish, chicken, lamb and the rest are mostly spared”. Kumar smiled wryly at the word ‘mostly’. He then saw another sign, Texan hot dog for just 10 bucks. So, a pig is small. Cows are small too, he thought.

He walked back home and it was about 430 pm. He was tired and went to sleep. He had a nightmare. In a parallel universe, evolution had progressed beyond man: from monkey to man to onk. Onks were stronger, much more intelligent and possessed magical powers too. They had men and women as pets. Ironically, one Onk was watching a performance of a man showing off his pet monkey’s dancing skills and singing, “Naach mere bulbul tho paisa milega” (Dance my Bulbul (monky) and you will get money). Men did a lot of work for Onks and could talk too, they typed out emails for Onks, cooked food for them, wrote software and even danced and composed music for their entertainment. At night, humans were chained and put in a cage. Men and women were made to breed in environments that were meant to be specialized chambers, conducive for breeding. At any time of the day, Onks would randomly pull out humans of any size or shape and feed them into Man processing machines. Hot Babes and Hot Hunks began to have different meanings – those terms meant long sausages made of corresponding meat from hot babes or hunks and served with duck sauce and beef chilly on the side. Kumar woke up with a start and was glad to be alive.

His mother called, “Kumar, dinner is ready. And surprise! grandma has excitedly cooked your favorite, lamb curry with rice”.

Kumar slowly got up and started walking towards his food …. You, Mr. Kumar, what are you going to do?

Core Competency – Alarming realization

Champions Trophy Predictions

The way the tournament is going, I love the fact that all probability models are going for a toss. England’s shocking display, SA’s losses …. enjoy! Anyway read on …
On the basis of different analyses, it is clear that the media is touting SA as favorites followed by Australia and India. As always, there is the disclaimer that we cannot ignore teams like Sri Lanka / Pakistan or even New Zealand.

Other parallel gossip include:
This is a great chance for one day cricket to stay alive and that if the tournament is interesting enough, ODI may continue to live else might soon die an unnatural death. Sponsorship deals will go begging and cricket loving corporates like LG, Pepsi, ING will recast their marketing and advertising budgets. Some Modi will change IPL’s full form to ING Pepsi LG Cup and divert all the money to a different tournament.

Yaaawn …. A late entrant like the T20 format has begun to stab the ODI format from behind its back. We have started to question the logic behind a 50 over match. Nobody is talking about a F40 or T35 or T30, it seems there is F50 or T20, nothing in between. This is deviation from earlier logic where ODIs were 60 over a side, then 55. It has stagnated at 50 overs a side for a long time now. In ODIs, 50 overs happen unless extraordinary circumstances force us to calculate what a Duck is Worth along with what a ‘Loo is’ supposed to show on a table also nicknamed the Duckworth Loo-is method.

Let me now jump to the point. Based on the schedule, I came up with a probability based calculation to get the expected points. I also notice that India meets WI only on the last day of the group match schedule. This means, Aus and Pak have higher chances of winning against WI. Reason being, West Indian full strength team might be back by then. This is again a disadvantage for India. Anyways, given where we are, here is my take on how things look like based on form and probability (due to subjective factors like weather conditions, current team structure, nature of pitch at SA etc)

Given the above scenarios, possible final could be Aus Vs Pak or SA vs Pak / SL.

Calculating actual probabilities for every team is a time consuming task and I would have to revise Bayes’ Theorem. But, taking a perspective from my approximation world, teams in descending order of probability to win the tournament are Pakistan, SA, SL, Australia, India, NZ, Eng and WI.
Being an India fan, obviously my heart lies elsewhere but my mathematical brain is pointing at a different direction.

Kolkata Durga Pujo – a different perspective

For those who dont understand Bengali, read the below, else skip this section please):
Jaano? = do you know?
Arrey, theek aachey = Tch Tch … its ok
Dhoor = expression of disgust, like Oh crap etc
Puchkas = Pani puris, golgappas, an amazing snack that is a hollow sphere, cracked at the top, filled with spicy potato etc and dipped in special pani puri water and gobbled. Has addictive side effects followed by risk of stomach upsets unless you pop Pepto Bismol pills before bed.
Prosad = after prayers, food given as gift of god. Usually consists of mixed fruits and sweets.
Cholo = come, lets go

BOMB (Bengali old man, Basu): Dibyaduti (pronounced Dibboduthy) was a self styled rebel, jaano? Anything, anybody did, he didn’t want to do that. He had to be different from the normal, a tangent to the normal, from a geometric perspective, if you see what I mean.

OWL (Old woman, Lopa): Bappi (nick name of Dibboduthy) is in Teckshaas (Texas) for a very long time. Why do you suddenly remember him now?

BOMB: Arrey, he is our son. Not remembering him, maaney? This is Durga Pujo – Thakur Maa is home, when else will I remember Bappi. He didn’t even call us yet. Just wired us some more money for organizing the community pujos. Dhoor!

OWL: Arrey, theek aachey, he is a good boy with values. Even today, he does listen to Robindroshongit and reads Bengali books. His son also knows about Aurobindo, Netaji and all the other illustrious Bangaalis including Raja Ram Mohan Roy. They have not forgotten our roots.

BOMB: As a little boy, he used to hate the crowds. Remember, how we walked from Tollygunge Metro station all the way to Bhowanipore and did pandal hopping. He hated the crowds. The only things he liked then were the giant wheel at Deshapriyo Park and shooting balloons with those long rifles or air guns or whatever these people call them. Of course the puchkas and other junk food.

OWL: The next day, he couldn’t even eat prosad because of his stomach upset.

BOMB: Of course, he then began to have friends and god knows where all they used to roam around the entire night. Pujos is absolutely fantastic with all those lightings and brilliant designs of pandals. Why is he not coming home for the Pujos even after missing the last 12 years?

OWL: Arrey baaba, relax. He is a busy man and cannot visit us at this time of the year. Cholo, lets go inside. Dutta babu, Bulbul di, Babloo and Tuki are coming home. I have asked Narayon to be ready with rosogollas.

In a parallel world at Texas, Dibyaduti Basu (new nickname Dib) is telling his wife the same things he tells her every Pujas:
“Alice, how I wish I was at home now, in Kolkata. How I wish I were there for the school reunion at Maddox Square Garden on the 26th at 3 pm. My friends, my schoolmates, my old crushes, they will all be there. They would have grown older by 20 years but it is so awesome that they are still able to be where we were at least during the grandest time of the year in Calcutta. I hated the crowds during the Pujas back then. But wow, what a grand assortment of colors it used to be. The whole city would come together and celebrate the home coming of the Goddess. Everybody – rich or poor would wear new clothes, walk around, sing, dance and have a blast. Movie theatres would overflow and unlike any other time of the year, during the Pujas, Calcutta would go nocturnal. A million lights arranged in different patterns would brighten up the place. Brisk business everywhere and something for everybody of all ages, sizes, shapes, religions – it has to be seen to be believed. I have seen no other place like that in the world, actually”

Alice: Every year, for the last 12 years, you have said the same thing about what you did then. How you didn’t enjoy so much then but now miss it like mad. I have heard about the buffalo, demon, the pet lion of the Goddess, flanked by various gods and their pets or vehicles. I know, Dib, I know all that by heart. But now, you are also talking about long lost friends. Why don’t we go there next year at least, Dib? But, I must tell you wiki has a treasure of knowledge on Puja and hey, why don’t we go to Univ of Minnesota. That’s after all the only place to have Pujas within their campus!

Dib: Yeah, some day we should go there, Kolkata, I mean. I will then introduce you to all my school friends and maybe even the teachers. Meanwhile, I wish all my Kolkata friends a very very happy Pujos. Shubho Bijoya and see you next year with Alice and Bhuju (Bhuju is nick name of Dib Jr.)

Abhimanyu could have been saved with a Brahmastra

Problems in life seem to arrange themselves in a Chakra Vyuha formation. Like Abhimanyu, who knew how to enter the Chakravyuha but didn’t know how to come out of it, we become Abhimanyus when it comes to dealing with problems. Office, work, home, money, love, exercising, hobbies, time management are top of the mind warriors attacking us within the chakravyuh boundaries. Abhimanyu was a brave and skilled fighter who faced greats like Drona, Duryodhana, Karna, Kripa etc. He fought hard and stunned the Kaurava army inside the circle of death. But it was a matter of time before he had to die, there was no way he would win the battle single handedly. We keep praising the way he fought but finally he died in a sad manner – Dushashan’s son, hit him from behind with a mace and he fell to the ground, dead.

The problems I mentioned are like the warriors who will somehow pin you down and kill you unless you approach the formation differently. The more you fight, the more tired you will be. If you increase the frequency of arrows shot at the problems, there will be more arrows shot back at you, maybe accompanied with spears and mace blows too.

Could there have been a way out? What if Abhimanyu could manage to send a sms to Arjun’s iPhone?. Arjuna was fighting some other component of the Kaurava army but if he got the sms or mms, surely, he would have hurled a few weapons and saved his son. Maybe even used the Brahmastra. The sms sending is not important then, it is the Brahma astra or Naga astra or some other powerful weapon that could have saved Abhimanyu. Did such weapons exist? Absolutely yes, but the context of the battle was different. It was Abhimanyu vs The Obvious winners. If you have seen Magadheera, the fight scene reminds you of Abhimanyu, you know the hero has to die but find yourselves marveling at his courage and fighting spirit. Big deal, what’s the use? That’s another perspective if you are serious in extricating yourselves from the web of problems.

First, believe that there is a Brahma Astra somewhere for you. You or somebody else for you (upward or downward or sideways delegation, I mean) can hurl that at your enemies (enemies = problem sources). Unlike Brahma Astra that could only be used once, you have the power to directly or indirectly use it infinite times. The problems are like Rakthbheeja (RB) rakshasa, who got a boon that one drop of blood falling from body will transform to one Rakthabheeja. Hmm … what a cost effective cloning technique, I say! Problems are like RBs too, kill one, another comes flying at you, murder that, use another brahmastra, another problem, astra, problem, astra …. Infinite do loop will continue and you will ultimately crib that even a million brahmastras couldn’t save you. So, lets go back to original Chakravyuh problem and come out of it first. Lets say you have lots of work, got to take girlfriend out for dinner, submit report to big boss and also watch the Thursday night Steelers game. Whatever you do, you cannot be at all places at once. Here is where Lateral Thinking comes to play. If you approach the solution in a straight forward manner, you will end up solving one of the problems alone. Most probably, the boss’ report will be sent out. You will be sad, feel defeated, girlfriend will not let you near her, Steelers would play without missing your cheering. With traditional problem solving methods, hey, good luck to you. Hope your savings will take care of your funeral services, because death is inevitable. If you stand a chance, it’s only by adopting a different non-linear approach. Think of how you will solve all these yourself or with help from any and every source or resource you can leverage. Maybe you could record the game and watch it later, come back from a quick dinner and continue with your report or outsource report creation to a colleague or at least part of it – there is no one correct way, but unless you believe you CAN resolve the problems, forget about it. Your post mortem report will read, “This Abhimanyu died when Problem Money, hit his head with Financial Bankruptcy Mace” or some similar template where Money and Financial Bankruptcy are variables that can be replaced by different values.

Brahma Astra zindabad!
Lateral Thinking ki Jai!
If you are normal, more often than not, there will be one issue or another, to attack and at that time, use Lateral Thinking. Because there will be a Brahma Astra somewhere to be found. Good luck with your search capabilities. Be better than Google in searching, else drown in grief. Go figure!

p.s: Abhimanyu = Abhi + Many + u = right now, there are many yous = you can use multiple brahmastras and achieve many things at the same time if you want to by solving multiple problems at the same time.

Soap and Love uncles’ walking discussion

Meet SOAP and LOVE, two young Telegu green card flaunting men in their late twenties. They are working in Government jobs in the US of A, but are more glued to ETV, Eenadu newspaper than Fox News or even TOI.
Mr. Speaker of All Points (SOAP) is self styled Fundaguru, who likes to express his opinions on anything and everything. An observation without a thought and a thought without a comment is not possible for SOAP babaai.
Mr. Listener of Virtually Everything (LOVE), on the other hand, would listen and reply with a counter question. Love gaaru is a serious, lost in his own world type dude, who is nicknamed Love Uncle by his friends.
Soap and Love are taking a stroll around the perimeter of their apartment complex at Pittsburgh.

Soap: Strange are we the humans.

Love: Why do you say that?

Soap: On one hand, we want things to get faster and faster – instant coffee, instant noodles, high speed internet etc – anything that can give us more comfort we want that, no?

Love: Yeah, so?

Soap: So nothing, Love! We want more time to waste more time.

Love: What are we going to do wasting more time? What about YSR, he got instant death, no?

Soap: That is exactly where I was going. When it comes to death, we cannot face or accept it, especially, the instant variety.

Love: Why? Death in any form is unacceptable.

Soap: The natural way of looking at things has conditioned us in strange ways. Look at the day to night transition, change of seasons, growing up from baby to man. Obviously, we would find it strange to encounter a bright afternoon hot sun one moment, suddenly followed by darkness of the night. Or a hot sultry summer day followed by a snow storm in the next one hour. Nature gives us time to adjust our lenses, cone and rod cells in the eyes to adjust from evening to night. Cone and red cells or something like that, I remember from those days of Biology classes in school.

Love: What is your point?

Soap: Well, we want slow transition; instant change is only acceptable when a sari clad homely heroine in Bollywood suddenly changes into a mini skirt for a dream song and dances around in the rain with macho hero.

Love: But why did people commit suicide?

Soap: Initially, I was aghast. But look at those people and how their heads are wired. They did because they were unable to accept change.

Love: Wired?

Soap: Thought process, Love, their way of thinking is like that. They feel they are a body while their blood is YSR. So, when blood splits out, they have to end their lives. Haven’t you seen Kamal Hasan’s Nayagan? How old women pour petrol and light fire to themselves.

Love: Yeah. Does Kamal have a similar hot kissing scene like Vinod Khanna and Madhuri in the Hindi version, Dayavan?

Soap: Love!!! Where is YSR and where is a hot smooch? You are one strange thinker.

Love: Ok. So what about YSR’s son being projected as the CM candidate?

Soap: With great power comes great responsibility. The CM’s post equals great power and mark my words, new candidates will come up. Sonia will handle it well, though, by maintaining status quo, probably.

Love: Shall we go? I am hungry.

Soap: Your last sentence was not a question!! So, let us go.

We are the Pittsburgh Stealers

We never get invited to parties. We just go and take what is available. Some call it stealing and if and when we are caught, do not hesitate to beat us to death. One small morsel of food from a huge pile can also hurt the men who will never share with us. We can hurt them but they hit back and we hit back stronger, then they hurl whatever they can grab to hurt us, with the intention of murdering us. There is no concept of catching us and handing us over to the police or sentencing us to punishment in a court of law. Our families have endured this injustice for ages and lived this way for ages. This is exactly how we are going to be, we know that and that is what makes us stronger. Government policies and plans around us mean more of us will die than receive any benefits.
Last Friday, I saw a group of 15 men spreading a huge banquet of amazing food – pizzas, cakes, biryanis, kabas and what not. They uncorked bottles of champagne and began to celebrate somebody’s triumph. Not sure whether they already knew that Force India F1 team would finish second in Belgian Grand Prix. But the celebrations were akin to what Mallya threw on Sunday.
My friend and I hid behind the curtain and waited for the right opportunity to steal some food and run off to feed our children. After a while, the men were talking more loudly, even the ones who had been quiet began to get up and shake their legs in what seemed like an apology of a disco dance. My friend grew impatient and slowly rushed towards a pizza, when nobody seemed to be looking. But one of the relatively sober party animals spotted him and hurled a glass at him. It hit my friend’s left leg but he still nibbled on a piece of the pizza, coughed at the high spice levels and tried his best to escape and come back to me. By this time, 3 more boys joined and with whatever they could hold, like a stick, the champagne bottle and even bare hands ran in all directions to kill my friend. I watched helplessly and all I could do was pray.
My friend is an expert who kept cool, maneuvered his path expertly and escaped. I am risk averse and just fled from the scene. We had already planned on our exit route, the narrow gap between the slightly ajar door and the wall that opened into the balcony.
What a life, we flies lead. And men don’t even allow us to feed on resources that are rightfully ours.
We have a meeting tomorrow to discuss on how we can carry more viruses and attack those boys, who could have killed my friend in front of my eyes. We want to avenge the deaths of King Fly and Queen Fly, who were crushed to death by a man’s shoe some days back. So far, our partnership with pigs has been successful and we are doing a great job carrying the swine flu virus. We look forward to more such partnerships with different animals and attack the bloody humans and obliterate them from the face of this earth.

p.s: I am a Steelers fan myself, so my fellow fans, please dont beat me now

Ashes – a strategic perspective

As the Ashes cricket series comes to an end, it is interesting to see how the media is now only focusing on how great the English win was. Stuart Broad bowled so beautifully that Miss Universe 2009, in an ideal world is just a runner up. The actual winner would have been the beauty of Broad’s bowling. At last, the media claims, Flintoff’s successor has been found. They are now so Broad minded, I see. They even praise how well the English selectors have excelled in succession planning exercise over the years. Yeah, a win can make the wiring in the brain say anything, I suppose. In reality the English selectors are only better than Pakistani selectors, my feeble brain protests. Who cares for my analysis, though!

This is so different from tossing improbable situations at the world for considerations just ten days ago. Different perspectives arise from the discussion around recalling Mark Ramprakash and Marcus Trescothick for the final test.

Let us consider a situation where the US is planning to regain their hold on the 100 & 200 meters track events. They are currently struck by a giant Jamaican bolt and even the Americans discovered that running the third fastest time in history is also not good enough. Bolt hurls thunderbolts at world records again and again. Hmm … so let us get Carl Lewis back! What an idea? Or, maybe hold the next event at any place that doesn’t start with B like Berlin or Beijing. B for Bolt – that’s favorable lettering advantage for Usain, huh! Heights (or depths) of lateral thinking, I must say.

What about Tennis? How can Americas win all Slams and Davis Cups? Oh, that, just get McEnroe and Connors to beat the other nations, they were the best anyways. Or Sampras and Agassi, if they are available. If you are wondering that is preposterous, in my opinion, Mark Ramprakash coming back to play for England for the 5th test was an equally outrageous proposition. Trescothick is not in the team due to his nervous breakdowns and to bring him into a situation like the Ashes decider test would have been impossible. But naughty Trescos made it interesting by having a good record this season.

Consider that it was just a fantastic strategy! The Aussies were always proud of their mind games, arrogant talk and dismissive attitude. They did win the 4th test convincingly. The Aussies were laughing at how England was finished, desperate (even more desperate than Warne ever was trying to find the right barmaid) and had to be totally out of their minds to seriously consider such old warriors for modern day wars. They should be showing faith in their current bunch of guns, they said, instead of using rusted swords. But of course how could England, when their middle order together could not muster a quarter century in both innings of the previous test cumulatively. Over confidence once again began to creep in slowly into the Aussie minds. On top of that, there was immense self inflicted pressure on the Australians. They began to talk about this being the mother of all tests ever played, particularly for star players, Ponting and Hussey. While the former had to exact revenge, the latter had to play well and keep his place in the side. Before they knew what hit them, a slump from 80 odd for 1 to 160 all out and then, 2 brilliant run outs, a weak bowling display, an amazing century on debut by Trott and the media as always, did a U turn, forgot everything about the past and started focusing on what went wrong for the Australians. No Hauritz, 4 pacemen strategy, Ponting’s leadership, Johnson’s form – well, all of that could be possible reasons, but the trap was laid before the first ball was bowled.

In war, distracting an enemy is an effective strategy – distract, make the opponent feel they will win and in the actual battlefield, hit them so hard that they don’t recover from the killer punch. Well done England, it is probably the first time in many years that I have seen English cricket plot a recovery and hit at a depleted Australia side like this. They did it even without KP’s services for most part of the series, and that is truly amazing! It was a good series – few great performances, but overall keenly fought between two equally strong (or teams with long term strategy to get stronger and stronger) sides. Before I say bye, looks like the ODIs are starting. This is an over overdose of cricket.

Jealous Bastard, Possibility and Humanity

I have written about 5 to 10 poems as a kid but threw them all away decades ago, thinking they were not good. But with my paradigm shift in thinking and ‘who cares?’ attitude, I broke the barriers. Barriers of too much of thinking ‘will this be good enough to post’ or ‘should I even share something I suck at’ but finally going ahead with what I feel is an honest attempt at poetry! Ha ha … as I said, who the heck cares? Enjoy!

Hi, My name is Jealous Bastard

When others doing better I see, green I go with envy,
By green I go, not the environmental green impact, I mean,
Implied is the envy bloodied green that makes my life go topsy turvy,
And to I, better than me, anybody is so difficult to be seen.

Eternally looking for ways to ridicule and discourage go getters,
For known I have that all possibilities cannot just be made to happen,
Somebody when does manages to break the impossibility fetters,
Quickly I all let be known how the achiever was luck stricken.

Selfish I am and care not for why and what around me, people want,
Because, I, me and myself is all that is worth I bother about,
Right I am, and others are wrong, even if all that know me, do me taunt
All time, alive and kicking I am for a reason and an excuse to shout.

Hi, My name is Mr. Possibility

Open to learning I am, from the others’ success stories
Learn also I do from failures of others, so to not repeat them in my life.
Team player I am and believe that with possibility reality marries,
Only if with pessimism, resentment and regret you be not at strife.

The future is full of possibilities and can we make anything happen
A dreamy eyed soul I am and ensuring success I love for our team
Knowing, our resolve, focus and belief in mind if we sharpen
We can get anything, matter not how tough it may seem.

Unstoppable and happily moving towards our goals, we go
Marching ahead, not afraid of failure or success as a result,
Because that’s the one and only way it has got to be so
For failure can only teach and is not to our efforts an insult.

Who you want to be is a matter of your choice,
Being Somebody Else or Jealous Bastard or Mr. Possibility?
Whoever – but may your choice be wise enough to rejoice,
Please, good you be as each of us play roles shaping humanity.

Around giants

I dozed off in the car – I always do that whenever the drive is more than 10 minutes. Obviously I do that only when I am not driving. When I woke up, I was completely shocked at what I saw. I had come to a mall for giants. I had never seen so many gigantic creatures before. They were walking around, talking to each other excitedly, some were big and some were not so big but even the smallest giant was at least 5 times my size.

I saw giants that had come from different parts of the world. The Hindu giants or Rakshasas were busy discussing something in a language I did not understand. I was certain they were going to roast me and eat me for breakfast.

There was an angular faced giant and I was certain he was Greek. He had a technical name, Ajax and his shorter friend, a slow moving Herodotus was looking at me hungrily.

Then, there were the Norse giants too, frost giants (hrímþursar), fire giants (eldjötnar), and mountain giants (bergrisar), all sounding strange. The women giants wore short skirts but I was too scared to look up fearing an angry reaction from them or their protective boyfriends. Ogres and trolls were roaming around freely at the mall often picking up dresses and putting it on them.

Was I so small that they didn’t notice me or were they too busy in their own worlds? Whatever the truth, I was increasingly unsure of how long it would be before my end would happen. It seemed inevitable.

I felt helpless and scared to do anything. I began to get restless because the giants were busy with whatever they were doing and didn’t seem to be intent on crushing me. What if some giant lifted me and ran away? Would I be kept in a cage like the parrot at my neighbor’s house? Would the giant watch the same TV programmes that I do or would he beat me or what else awaited me – a medley of thoughts ran through my mind mainly out of fear and insecurity. Suddenly I felt that I was moving through the crowd – I didn’t do anything myself, something was making me move, actually meander through the madding crowd of those colossal beings – I was going straight but all of a sudden found myself moved to the left and then to the right, then straight again. This state of being, where I had absolutely no control of what was happening around me or to me and being surrounded by all the smelly giants was making me puke. When I looked up, I could only see up to the asses of those creatures. Their faces seemed so far above. Then, I knew how to bring the situation under control, I knew exactly how to be safe.

All I had to do was cry and cry out loud! I did that and immediately, got a bottle of milk stuffed into my mouth. My mom giant and father giant are always so nice to me. By the way, hi, I am Dinesh and I am seven months old. God knows why my parents take me to malls!

Just Do it!

I cannot stress the importance of what I realized a few weeks ago and after my realization, there was no option but to swing into action. I wanted to share that and see if I could inspire you to move your ass too for some area(s) in your life as well.
I have been planning and planning … yawn … planning to do a lot of things for many years. For example, while I was a kid, I saw a few movies and loved war on the big screen. Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare are movies that come to my mind instantly – those were 2 movies that I saw with my dad and I have never seen him that excited in anything other than a cricket game! The more ancient the background setting in a war, the more interested I would get. So, there I was, a little kid absolutely overawed by trying to imagine, how Mr. Alexander the Great or King Vikramadiya would look like or how Mr. Bhima from Mahabharata could lift trees and hurl them at the evil asuras and rakshasas. How could an army of monkeys fight against an army of demons? Then, I was very intrigued by scud missiles that got sufficient press coverage during the times Saddam was sent these gifts via air mail from those Bushy planes. History began to excite me. I began to find it fascinating with the realization that man’s thoughts around greed, love, power etc have not undergone any change – only the settings have changed. Pigeon carriers have evaporated to form wireless signals; not letters on paper or leaves but emails packed in invisible containers called data packets are flying in all directions under the sea, over the head, through your body etc but man is man – still the same. History books were like the sexy temptations that I wanted to indulge in, but never did. Obviously, where was the time? I was so busy! But did I decide, ditch history? Well, No!! Because I could find time and read it tomorrow or very soon or shortly or in the next few days. Multiple ways of saying the same thing, huh!
Was it only history – did I not want to secretly read the Kamasutra when I was a teenager? The secret is, I did get time to read it and even the access to the right source. Shhh …. There were other books on different topics that I did read but only when I really wanted to.
Alexander was not the only topic of interest for me. For example, I was told by some friends about this book called Lord of the Rings. I also found that book in 2 of my friends’ houses, borrowed it and didn’t get past the first 10 pages. Why?? Obviously I was busy practicing math or reading physics or playing the violin. Where the heck was the time?
Then, I went to college and got busy – formed several brick and mortal social networks and met people face to face – no facebooks then! We twittered for hours on various things in life. All that I read was the sports section (and started solving crosswords too) but beyond that in newspapers, didn’t read much. I loved to read (meaning loved the idea of reading) economics, mythological creatures and wow, how amazing that Roman / Mexican mythology had parallels with Indian mythology too. So my ‘to read tomorrow’ list began to grow at an alarmingly fast pace. Demand (demand to read from my head) and reading supply’s gap was becoming wider and wider. Of course, B-school and job interviews meant there were classics that had to be read. How could somebody not read the Goal or Positioning or X or Y and call themselves a MBA graduate from a premier institute? Believe me, one can get away and nobody will ever know – after all, all you need to survive in the universe is common sense and a mind that can convince you and others Forget survival, you can succeed too.
I recently went to this book store (Bradleys) and to be honest, it was a completely unplanned visit. They offered a huge discount and their sales event has been going on for a while. When I went and saw the books, I realized there were some books I had wanted to read for the last 25 years. By now, you and I have both made an intelligent guess that I didn’t find the time to read it in 25 x 52 x 7 x 24 hours, which is almost 200 thousand hours – a miniscule percentage of my expected life, just close to 40%, to be precise.
I stood frozen and wiped the sweat that mysteriously appeared on my forehead. I quietly bought some books and have been taking time out to read – at least half an hour every day. I also take time – about 15 minutes each for some of my other interests that didn’t get to see the light of the day because I just didn’t do it! I haven’t compromised on my long work hours or anything else I have been doing as part of my normal life too. I know I will never meet all my demands from a cumulative demand perspective – reading or other stuff but am so glad, I have made a start towards proudly deleting items from the ‘To Do’ list and throwing them forever into the dungeons of the ‘Yeayeee, Its Done’ List. I did miss out on a lot of things but I am not going to miss the misses and find another perfect reason to only add to my demands without doing anything about the supply side of the equation. Now, I love the phrase, ‘Just Do it’, more than it just being a brand association or slogan that only Nike can use!
So, if you are waiting for something, well, ‘Just do it!’ The waiting time is like the empty space in your life’s atom while action time may just be the small space the nucleus and other sub atomic particles occupy.

p.s: I didn’t start the post intending to preach here, but hey, what the hell, I like doing that too

Disappearing thoughts

To appreciate beauty one needs an eye keen,
For what is unseen also needs to be seen.
To appreciate love one needs a heart clean,
Clean enough to see what the love in others mean

In my attempt at poetry, I got a sudden wave of excitement and jotted down the above lines about 4 weeks ago. About 3 weeks ago, when I was in a plane with my laptop stowed up in the overhead bin, I had thought of the next 8 lines and was very excited about it. But I was too lazy to take the laptop and type or even take a pen and paper to write what I had thought. It has been over 3 weeks and I just cannot remember what I had thought then.

There are so many times that we think of an idea – maybe related to something you can post a blog on, a short story, an idea for a movie script, something you want to say to somebody or whatever but 5 minutes later, it is completely erased from your memory. All that you can remember was that it was a great thought that entered your house of thoughts and left without a trace, using some exit door you never knew existed, stealing a piece of mental peace forever. But the mind keeps going back to, what the hell was I thinking? Any clues? Nothing whatsoever seems to help remember what that was. Sometimes, you do remember and feel excited that you got it, phew! But realize that maybe it was not what you had thought earlier. There is this seed of doubt that is sowed in your head and your uncertainty about the perfect match of past thought (what seemed like you had pressed shift delete on the virtual memory keyboard) and recovered thought (recovered through application of tools like vigorous shaking of head, tapping head, immersing head in deep thought, searching for it in the infinite capacity of the natural hard disk in the head without a specific search string) is eating your head. Was this the right search output or was I really thinking something else? There is no way to prove the match and it is totally left to your left brain to play tricks on you and command it to either accept or reject the new old thought.
It takes seconds, sometimes days or even months for me to give up some searches like this completely. Just like when we open the task manager on our machine and see processes or applications that you would not know were running, our brain has so many thoughts running in parallel without our knowledge, it’s simply amazing!
Time for a restart!
CTRL-ALT-DEL

p.s: Getting older is not fun

Monday daydreams

Some interesting thoughts on the past and future:
1.
I worked for companies that were profitable and well, lets assume an average of 20% net profit from the revenues as a benchmark. So I thought of myself as an organization too and drew up an approx value of my earnings for the 12 years or so that I have been working in the big bad corporate world. My savings or net profitability is so abysmally low, how can I ever sell my stock (RRI or R Rangarajan Iyengar Inc) in any imaginary stock exchange? I am not even a penny stock! What a realization!

So I am going to look at serious cost cutting measures and find out new ways to increase revenues from alternate sources as well.

2.
We always want to immediately classify people in some fixed way that we know people are – smart, dumb, handsome, beautiful, stupid, ugly etc. And we also exactly know what he / she will reply if we go and talk to them on something. This, in Landmark / Vanto terminology is called a racket (read the Three Laws of Performance for more gyaan). So, I decided to give up my rackets and went ahead to communicate with a couple of people I hated! And in doing that with an open mind, I did surprise myself at the responses.

So, going back to point 1 and combining both points 1 and 2, I might be begging Ambanis or Mittals or some rich dudes to please part with a miniscule percentage of their money to a racket free man like me. Who knows?

3.
Despite being an IIT IIM graduate, I am technologically challenged in most situations and do not get the basics of Finance right. Of course, I am now a proud subscriber of HBR, Mckinsey quarterly etc and am reading stuff to get better, but from deep inside, I know that there are certain things I can and cannot do. These are areas of improvement for me.

Combining points 1, 2 and 3 from above, I am going to approach the rich tycoons with business ideas and pitch (a better idea than using a self derogatory act like begging, huh! How could I think of that earlier?!) to them with strategically value adding crap and insist that they part with a fraction of their money. One drop of water evaporating from the sea couldn’t make much of a difference to the sea of financial resources available to them. So, I will use technology by using powerpoint presentations and schedule these meetings using a hi-fi phone. I shall also create financial models using excel to wow them.

4.
Despite my love for the media / arts, I have always stayed away from book writing / playing my violin or writing a script for Bollywood or Hollywood because I like to think about how creative I am vis-à-vis most jokers who write scripts in the cine field. But when I look at great people, I get an automatic excuse to persist with my laziness in a justified manner. But hey, there is no term, greatest in any field. The buck stops at being great or better, trying to be doing what you want to do.

So, there are 2 options available to me now when I combine all the above points.
A. I create multimedia presentations for the business heads and go pitching (dunno why my mind wants to argue and call it begging for opportunities).
B. Whether I fail or succeed in above attempts, I write a book / autobiography.
C. If it fails, I still feel I did move my lazy ass and if it succeeds, I make the book into a movie

But unfortunately, right now, I got to go back to work and I am going to turn my outlook to a different world, the world of Outlook Calendar and schedule the above plan. Maybe I need a Project Plan or whatever.
My Monday daydreams are so hot and sexy – gives me good time pass and now, I can get to work again!!

Same Same – not Puppy Same anymore!

Shame shame puppy shame was a common phrase I heard as a kid, but even google struggles to give exact meaning of what the phrase means. Lets just say, it means shame because you, as 3 year old kid was undergramentless or did something outrageously stupid! That is deviating from the same same topic though, so I jump into the story rightaway.

Ramanathan: “I was doing fine and then I started Living On Varying Emotions”.
Ramanathan’s father: “What?”
Ramanathan: “Yeah, I fell in Love and didn’t know that’s what Love meant!”
Ramanathan’s father: “Oh, great, who is the girl?
Ramanathan: “No, it’s a boy, dad and I am going to marry him and him only”.
Ramanathan’s father: “But, but … what about Rekha? Your horoscopes match so well, it has to be a match made in heaven”.
Mom enters the scene, “Oh my god, is this what I deserve after all these years?”
Ramanathan: “But this is not illegal anymore, ma!”

Ad in Matrimonial section of The Hindu:

Handsome boy, 28 years old, ABC caste, XYZ star, BCD community earning 7 figure income, great family, looking for another handsome boy. Clean habits and straight family preferred. Please respond to PO Box 123, The Hindu, XXXX.

Hmm … I had attended a training programme last weekend with about 80 odd people, which included 3 gay couples. There were 2 men couples and 1 lady couple. Their relationships are still going strong after 32, 28 and 27 years respectively. This really startled me and I was able to see that they really loved and respected each other. Had I not seen them closely, I would never really have thought that the possibility of such relationships could be genuine and not something unnatural. I have never seriously thought about the same sex stuff much and one reason for that was obviously that I have always been straight So, I did not have to come out of my space and even try to understand the possibility of the other world. In doing that, I also fooled myself into believing that I was an open minded person on this issue. But, deep inside, I didn’t really feel comfortable with the concept at all. After all, a significant part of my thought process will always be a Tam Brahm, right?

But it is inevitable that this form of sexual orientation has to be accepted at some point in the future. Whenever that happens, I am wondering what would happen to the conservative roots of the Indian society. The ad I typed above would be real and we would be used to different stories:

Bhaag gaya mera beta. Ram ke saath! [My son ran away with Ram]
Or
Naak kat gayi humari biraadri mein. Bhaag gayi meri beti. Radha ke saath! [Our family’s respect is all lost. My daughter ran away with Radha]

And Ram or Radha could be your son, daughter, friend, brother or sister and not just someone you had heard of or seen somewhere.