Crossroads Of The World

The Crossroads of the World, at night. 

Times Square, New York City—

That's where millions will descend tonight, to ring in the New Year. If previous experiences are an indicator, this year too, there’ll be clusters of a certain sort of out-of-towners, jostling and elbowing to reach, one never knows where.

A clutch of half dozen men, both skinny and potbellied, in acrylic pants, their clothes emitting the strong, repulsive scent of curry powder, will roam like they own the city's infrastructure. Ensconced in their midst, will invariably be a twiggy girl, with a pinched face—the queen of all their hearts, perhaps—radiating (unjustifiable) pride at being enveloped by a ring of malodorous, lusty boys.  

It’s an amusing scene, no doubt, but one reason, for me, to stay clear of Times Square, on New Year’s Eve.

Curtain Comes Down On Kodachrome

Created in 1935, Kodachrome was first the successful film to effectively render color. The last and lone Kodachrome-processing photo lab, a small family business in Kansas, closed a few days ago, bringing to a close an era of 75 years of film rolls.

(Via The New York Times)

Snow-Capped Sidewalks

Snow shovels on display at a small town, in Westchester, New York. 

New York City, it is said, never sleeps.

Yet, last night's blustery blizzard, gave it a sudden chill that's put it to a slumber. Snow-capped sidewalks, frozen into silence, stare back with a vacant, gauzy look. The hum of scurrying pedestrians that drives the very heartbeat of the Big Apple, is dimmed.

I cannot help but feel a stab of melancholy at the sight of deserted roads; shuttered shops; roads thickly carpeted by icy flakes that wrap themselves evenly around the chassis of street-parked cars, turning them into fluffy, white balls.

Oh, let the sun shine, hot and bright.

The Intellectual Staircase

By the time you reach the end of this staircase, i.e., you earn a Ph.D., you're possibly intellectually breathless, what with the massive number of books and journals you'd have to surmount to get to the top.

Between 2005 and 2009, American universities cranked out more than 100,000 doctoral degrees.

In the same period, however, there were just 16,000 new professorships. But, what happened to the rest of the newly minted doctorates? They probably realized they had wasted some, if not all, of their time.

(Via The Economist)

"To All The Girls I've Loved Before"

A short catalogue of women who've set my heart aflutter, since I was old enough to develop a crush, even though I didn't call it that.

Julie Andrews

Julie Andrews.  In "The Sound of Music," she dared to climb over the tall walls of the convent and love somone other than God, quite unlike the nuns who taught me at the Loreto Convent.



Michelle Obama



Michelle Obama. For her brain and her brawn.



Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep. In "The Devil Wears Prada," she made me fall in love with the devil.

Aparna Sen

Aparna Sen. I'd like to take a walk along the beach, on a moonlit night, with a woman like this.

Condoleeza Rice

Condoleeza Rice. I wish I were one of her "international affairs!"



Judi Dench



Dame Judi Dench. For being M, the boss of the world's sexist male spy, James Bond; for calling him a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War."



Sharmila Tagore


Sharmila Tagore.  Her coquettish sex appeal can quite make me weak at the knees.


Helen Mirren


Dame Helen Mirren. The sexiest 63-year-old I've come across, so far.


Hillary Clinton



Hillary Clinton. She exudes power. I felt it when I shook her hands. Really. 



Suchitra Sen

 Suchitra Sen. The quintessential, coy, yet steely Bengali beauty.

Hello, Mr. Frosty

Mr. Frosty, on a perch. 

How is his broom supposed to drive away the snow? But, then again, he isn't a South Dakota snowman.  I found him sitting on a window ledge at New York University's campus post office. 

The Giant Taps The Mob

Facebook is going to crowdsource its new software development.

The 2011 Facebook Hacker Cup is the first annual Facebook programming contest where hackers compete against each other for fame, fortune, glory and a shot at the coveted Hacker Cup.

Many will enter, but only one will claim title as champion and take home the $5,000 USD cash prize and be immortalized on the Hacker Cup.

Kimchi Without The Kick

The stars of a Korean meal, to me, are its entourage of side dishes served in miniature plates called banchan. When prepared with creative imagination and matching culinary talent, they light up a table as do pieces of glittering gems. 

Unfortunately, those I had at the Kung Suh, a Zagat-rated restaurant in the heart of the Korean section of Midtown Manhattan, were a crushing letdown. There were only four kinds, and not one of them was an item that wasn’t sold in a jar, in an Asian supermarket. 

It’s eminently possible that I’d made a poor choice in selecting the main course. But I’m fairly certain that had I ordered another dish, it would’ve have been no crowd-pleaser either.

A bowl of hwe dup bob.

The only cooked component inside this colorful bowl of hwe dup bob was the rice. The other two, chopped fish and greens—were not. But that only partially explains why it so woefully lacked zest. That the shredded fish wasn’t marinated enough in a stew of sauces is the likely reason for its utter insipidness.



Raw fish, a key ingredient in sushi, is tasteless by itself. Yet when had in accompaniment with sharp-tasting condiments like wasabi and pickled ginger, it's a delight to the taste buds. To offset the blandness of the fish, here, there were two equally tasteless partners.

The global palate, I feel, will need a bit more taste to successfully embrace Korean food, to the extent that it has say, Chinese cuisine.

Do Machines Dig Brands?

I made a curious observation while typing up a post sometime back. 

As I keyed in brand names such as PepsiCo, Frito-Lay’s Cheerios, Ruffles, Doritos, I half-expected Microsoft Word's spell-checker to underline them in red. But no, they weren't words that were new to the software.

Thinking that it was I, who had in the past, slid them into the program's built-in dictionary, I punched in the names of two leading Japanese companies to see how it would react to Hitachi and Fuji. It knew them as well.

Yet, when I punched in the economics concept “countertrade,” a composite of two English words, “counter” and “trade,” it regurgitated it. I then, went on to expand its feeble vocabulary. 

So it is not just us, humans, who love big brand names. Machines do too, eh? 

Cabbage Garden

Flowers, not cauliflowers. 

I found this vibrant, planter-size garden on a pedestrian plaza, a few steps from the Lincoln Center. What do they remind you of? Exactly. Veggies; red cabbages and cauliflowers. But, they’re supposedly seasonal flowers.

“Polylogue” Chambers

Prior to the Internet, newspapers had one-way conversations with their readers, whose interaction with the papers was limited to Letters to the Editor.

With Web 1.0, when the print industry reproduced its primary product—the newspaper itself—online, a two-way conversation took place. A dialogue began between the newspaper and its readers in the form of a comments section.

Now, with Web 2.0, newspapers have merely become the room in which a conversation among hordes of people takes place. In other words, they’vebecome “polylogue” chambers; a forum to foster a community.

Plus, Minus, And A New Word

I got this set of neologisms from a friend, who, in turn got it from another friend and so on. These are essentially words from the dictionary, altered it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supplied a new definition.

Cashtration. The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

Ignoranus.  A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

Intaxicaton. Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

Reintarnation. Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Bozone. The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

Foreploy. Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

Giraffiti. Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

Sarchasm. The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

Inoculatte. To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

Osteopornosis. A degenerate disease.

Karmageddon. It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

Decafalon. The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

Glibido. All talk and no action.

Dopeler Effect. The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

Arachnoleptic Fit. The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

Beelzebug. Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

Caterpallor. The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

Missive To Tumblr

Screengrab of the Tumblr fail screen.

My dear Tumblr:

Around 8:00 p.m., last evening, you staggered off with a promise to return "shortly." I took it to be the caprice of your moody self, confident that you’d be back no later than 10 minutes at the maximum. At the end of a couple of hours, I was still feverishly waiting for you to materialize out of a server and gallop back into my screen. Alas, that didn't happen.

Slowly, my creeping impatience with you was building into despondency. I crashed on my futon around midnight, forlorn and fatigued, buoyed by the hope that come sunrise, you’ll be standing strong and bright.

It's past 8:50 a.m., at this writing. Twelve hours have elapsed since you took a tumble. But the dreaded blackboard is still smoldering, saying, “"We'll be back shortly."

I’ve only known you for a little while. Yet in a short three months, you have come to be my best friend, my dearest hobby. So you can imagine—can you, really?—the wave of loneliness that engulfed me this morning, when I opened my eyes to find you still not here. Please dash home.

Affectionately yours,

Tumblr-er

Postscript. After languishing in a comatose state for nearly 24 hours, Tumblr opened its eyes around 5:00-ish p.m. this afternoon. When the moment of its awakening finally arrived, I threw my arms up in the air, sitting on my futon, let out a fist pump and cried, “Yay.”

I know, fans were irate and implacably upset at the platform for not being around to serve them, to enable them to post their content. But my feelings weren't of anger. Rather, I shed tear drops at its absence, missing it because it’s my dearest friend—online. To be mad at it would be unfeeling, cruel, and heartless.