Rishabh Kaul's Weblog » Uncategorized

Passing Opinions

Rishabh — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 09:40:12 +0000

Censure comes from Latin and means to pass an opinion or assess.

Film censorship becomes necessary because a film motivates thought and action and assures a high degree of attention and retention as compared to the printed word. The combination of act and speech, sight and sound in semi darkness of the theatre with elimination of all distracting ideas will have a strong impact on the minds of the viewers and can affect emotions. Therefore, it has as much potential for evil as it has for good and has an equal potential to instill or cultivate violent or good behaviour. It cannot be equated with other modes of communication. Censorship by prior restraint is, therefore, not only desirable but also necessary

Supreme Court of India

Why do you think we have so much vulgarity, songs, dances, pelvic thrusts, bathtub fantasies and dream sequences – because you won’t allow a simple kiss

Film maker Vijay Anand in an interview with India Today, 2002

I am currently reading The Republic by Plato, I am reminded of the noble lie that Socrates devises up to educate the republicans.

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

Books corner on my Blog

Rishabh — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 07:38:34 +0000

I have always wanted to maintain a list of books I have finished reading. I have used Shelfari, Goodreads and some of the other portals (even 43 things long back) but realized that what I need is something rather elementary. So, Google Docs it is. Every time I finish reading a book, I enter it along with the date into the sheet. This will help me track what I am reading, as well as when I am procrastinating.

So now look at the top of the page to the menu bar, do you see a “Books and Articles” tab there? Yes, that’s the one. Click it. The list should be considered meticulously updated, post 2006, that is once I entered college. Prior to that, while I had read a lot, I just don’t have the energy to put it all down in the form. The page also has my delicious link, which can help you track my bookmarks.

Also, I hope to write reviews of some of the books that I have read.

With the onset of the Young India Fellowship, I am hoping for the reading spike to become steeper than what it already is.

If any of you have a book recommendation to make, please do mail me at rishabhkaul at gmail dot com. I am always looking out for suggestions on what to read.

Dilip D Souza’s Twitter Quiz: For quizzers and book lovers (and BITSians)

Rishabh — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 07:29:40 +0000

My friend and super super senior from college Dilip D Souza recently released his new non fiction book: Roadrunner. He’s hosting a little quiz over at Twitter, winners of which get free copies of his book.

The book is about his travels in US, to little heard of corners of US (he was present in New Orleans and witnessed Katrina’s aftermath), the Indian version of which we’re creating with Grassroutes

I have read few pages of the book, but my friends who have read the entire book have given it a thumbs up and have recommended everyone to give it a shot.

Dilip has been writing about development issues, politics, occasional pieces on bras and has been published in most of the esteemed publications you read these days.

His twitter page is @DeathEndsFun, do give it a shot and hope you win a copy of his book!

Reached Delhi and living it loud

Rishabh — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 03:00:37 +0000

This space has been largely empty for the most part of post college duration. The reasons are obvious, but I hope to resume blogging now.

Living in Delhi has been very entertaining. Entertaining is the right word to be used here because someone that is the flavour of the town.

The area where I reside also contributes to that. With half the world’s population living here with me, (and the rest settled in Karol Bagh and Chandni Chowk I am led to believe) I am in the midst of the action. Be it getting up to go to work, which unlike BITS demands 100% attention (in terms of my physical presence), or randomly arranging last minute plans to meet someone, Delhi has kept me immensely occupied and more than mildly satisfied.

I was lucky to have found The Attic, a cosy little corner in Connought Place which brings regular doses of really good speakers. The best thing about the place being the suspiciously small audience. Consequence being, you get to interact a heck of a lot more than at usual conferences.

The place where I work, NCAER, comes out with fantastic reports, advising government and corporations on policy making. The next 5 months is going to be challenging and a learning experience with the vast amount of human as well as literary resources that NCAER providing me with.

The BITSAA Global Meet, which is the other activity that is taking up considerable amount of my time is also shaping up nicely with the panel discussions being finalized and scouting for speakers being the next step.

For those with an appetite for development and responsible businesses, I have started updating my Nextbillion with my experiences on the field with the Stories from Sarvajal’s Turf series. 2 posts have been put up and I believe I have material for 2 more which should be up by the end of next 2 weeks.

Facebook too has been of tremendous value in such times, with me needlessly messaging everyone in Delhi who I can lay my hands on and devoting my time to them. It’s part of the whole settling in phase I believe. Give me a month more, I am sure I will go back to my anti-social, virtual self. Though, I hope that doesn’t happen.

Also, I have 2 incredible roomies who have been tolerating my idiosyncrasies for long and I am grateful to them for that.

Lets see what’s in store next.

Setting up shop in Gujarat

Rishabh — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 13:13:46 +0000

If you want to set up shop in Gujarat but have no ideas. Tobacco is the answer.

Possibly the most profitable retail business in entire rural Gujarat would be the sale of tobacco. Every single person enjoys chewing it and spitting it out. It’s like cigarettes in Bengal.

Next would probably be telecom. They all have electricity in their homes thanks to the Jyoti Gram scheme introduced by the Modi Government. And now most of them have cell phones.

Ok, so may be I am wrong about the Telecom bit.

But Tobacco is extraordinarily popular here. It’s also ironic, considering this is the state that banned Liquor since 1961 a la Gandhigiri but left Tobacco

alone.

P.S: My fellow intern, Prateek Bhatt who studies in a jail was overlooking as I was writing this post and adds “No, please set up shop in Orissa instead.

If you want to set up shop in Gujarat but have no ideas. Tobacco is the answer. Possibly the most profitable retail business in entire rural Gujarat would be the sale of tobacco. Every single person enjoys chewing it and spitting it out. It’s like cigarettes in Bengal.

Next would probably be telecom. They all have electricity in their homes thanks to the Jyoti Gram scheme introduced by the Modi Government. And now most of them have cell phones.

Ok, so may be I am wrong about the Telecom bit.

But Tobacco is extraordinarily popular here. It’s also ironic, considering this is the state that banned Liquor since 1961 a la Gandhigiri but left Tobacco alone.

P.S: My fellow intern, Prateek Bhatt who studies in a jail was overlooking as I was writing this post and adds “No, please set up shop in Orissa instead.”

Climate change will make the poor poorer

Rishabh — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:21:14 +0000

[Image courtesy Really Natural]

With the COP15 approaching soon and the world chattering about whether a binding agreement will be signed, I have been thinking about the impact this will have on the developing nations. To start off to understand what is going to be discussed at Copenhagen here’s a brilliant post by my friend Abhishek Nayak that cuts through the jargon and as he likes to call it, makes you a UNFCCC expert (who is going to represent the Indian Youth Delegation at Copenhagen next month).

Jeffrey Sachs’ Commonwealth raises some valid issues about climate change and says that summarizing the effects of GHG as “global warming” is far too simple. That’s true for there far too many specific impacts this is going to have on our planet.

Changes in Water availability:

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink ;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge (from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner)

Apart from the Glaciers’ melting and reducing the freshwater availability in valleys below (which will cause floods first and then water shortage immediately after that), there’s also the issue to evapotranspiration which increases at higher temperatures and so there will be less water left for human use (and crop cultivation) in hotter environments before it evaporates.

Increased Natural Hazards:

The graph shows the prevalence of malaria in USA. As you can see, after a spike in the 60s, Malaria is almost non existent in USA; its completely eradicated in Canada. However with the rise in global temperatures, diseases such as malaria will become more common in non-tropical nations where the temperatures earlier were too low for the disease to transmit.And this will only make the conditions only worse in tropical countries.

Agricultural Productivity:

Rise in temperatures might help some regions which are very cold to increase the productivity, but is going to do much more harm to the warm and dry regions of the world who will end up with a considerable decline in their food productivity.This will harm tropical nations such as Africa, India and the like.

Needless to say the Rising Ocean Levels are going to submerge our good friends living in the islands and coastal areas and eventually come after the others who right now are a safe distance from the oceans.

Issues such as destruction of habitats (for example the corals, fish etc) will also be inevitable.

All this just means more trouble for the developing world for they will be affected the worst due to their poor buying power and inadequate aid.

And if they are to have any chance, the more developed nation will have to extend their help and what they’re doing right now doesn’t seem to be enough. There are massive discussions between what form of help will yield best results. There are many including Sachs, who believe that aid is an important ways to tackle the issues of the widening income gap. On the other hand he faces stiff opposition from Dambisa Moyo who wrote Dead Aid, in which she discusses how foreign aid has only made things tougher for the people, at least in Africa. They have been locking horns for quite some time and then William Easterly joined in as well supporting Moyo.

I don’t propose I know the solution, but I do know that major changes cannot take place without the government being involved. I also know that there’s no white and black area and that for something to work out a hybrid solution is required, in this case be it aid, cross subsidies, entrepreneurship, low cost technology.

Are our bowlers slackers?

Rishabh — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 02:19:00 +0000

After watching the India New Zealand clash where India started off quite spectacularly before Vettori did his bit, I couldn’t help but get a sense of deja vu. A similar situation had arisen during the Asia Cup in 1999 where we had Pakistan struggling at 20 something for 5 and ultimately let them reach 170 odd. It was partly due to the heroics of Moin and partly due to our boys slacking.

It would make for an interesting analysis to see how does India fare in general after getting to a vantage point with a good start.

The sample space could be all those matches where India has managed to get at least 5 wickets within a span of 100 runs and seeing the % increase in score hence.

Is Hugh Macleod’s Twitter account hacked?

Rishabh — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:50:00 +0000

…or atleast that what it looks like.

As I am writing this post, Me along with some 14000 other people are being bombarded with back to back messages from Hugh Macleod, more popularly known as Gaping Void.

The spamming started at approx 3.20 PM IST and ceases to stop. All the tweets start off with a “Hi! My name is Hugh MacLeod, I make a living selling ads on my blog”

Here’s a screenshot of the page

While majority of tweets focus on him living off the ads on his blog, there are the occasional tweets addressing a different topic

In the past there were instances of Britney, Obama and few other high profile tweeters whose accounts were hacked, so is this yet another case?

BITSians in CAT 2008

Rishabh — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 10:06:00 +0000

Here’s a list of BITSians who have cleared CAT, I’m sure there are many more, just add the names, %tile and the calls that they have got in the comments section below.

Update: There are rumours flying around that BITS Pilani, has the highest number of call getters from any single institution in India. I don’t know the authenticity of that claim though.

Abhishek Humbad 2005-2009, 99.93%,

Aditya Radhakrishnan, 2005-2009, 99.8%, C, I

Akhil Puri, 2005-2009, B & L

Aravind Vijayasarathy, 2005-2009, 99.96%, 6 calls

Ashwin Iyer, 2005-2009,99.9%

Astha Modi, 2005-2009, C (and some more)

Ayshwarya Vikram, 2005-2009, 99.7%,

Bharat Mimani, 2005-2009, S,

Gaurav Lunia , 2005-2009 99.43% B, K & S

Harshit Didwania, 2005-2009, S

Ishan Bhanu, 2005-2009, 6 calls

Karan Dhall, 2005-2009, 99.83%, 6 calls

Krishna Mohan Radhakrishnan, 2005-2009, 99.7%,

Krishna Prasad 2003-2007, B

Kuhu Sharma, 2005-2009, K

Manav Preet Singh, 2005-2009, all calls,

Muralikrishnan Nair 2005-2009, 99.7%

Navin Madhavan, 2005-2009, 98.8%, B & S

Narayanan 2003-2008, A,C,L,K

Nikhil Agrawal, 2005-2009,S

R Vijay(Psyche), 2004-2008, S,L,A,B

Ritesh Agarwal, 2005-2009, A,B & S,

Shashank More,2005-2009,B,K,S,I,L

Sri Harsha Majety, 2003-2008, 99.97%, 6 calls

Meeting brother after a while

Rishabh — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 00:16:00 +0000

I am home for a couple of days to spend the remainder of my winter break (to read about my road trip click here). And what’s the first thing that greets me here? My brother.

I am 20 and my brother is 11. That’s a difference of 9 years.

However, I believe he’s all grown up now. He’s started playing GTA and started referring to Bipasha Basu as “that sexy thing”. It’s brought a tear to my eye. I have been waiting for this coming of age for so long. Sigh.

He asked me if I’d watch Bachna e Haseeno with him. I obliged and listened to him explain how Deepika Padukone is simply too simple in the movie and hence isn’t worth the hype. Bipasha on the other hand is the real deal and deserves Ranbir.

Also, the other day I was asking him if he plays a character of African American descent in GTA San Andreas. With a look of contempt as if mocking my ignorance, he says “they’re called niggas bhaiyya!”

Mumbai Blasts: Lateral thinking

Rishabh — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 18:10:00 +0000

“Its time we stop being a secular nation!” my friend opined as we were sipping on some lemon sherbet. “There are far too many Islamist nations out there, so it’s not like they won’t find a home. Just drive these bastards out”

I was a bit shocked at his statement. Not knowing whether this was his attempt at black humour or if he actually believed in the segregation, I told him that a substantial portion of the civilians killed were in fact Muslims (You can check the entire list here), Indians.

My friend’s statement is one of the million opinions that the people of the nation have expressed after the Mumbai blasts which have, and it’s rather mildly put, devastated the nation.

“We must fight back” is the natural response to these attacks, but how? Will catching hold of these terrorists and then executing them on camera work? Probably this way tell the whole world that we will not take to terrorism lightly and can be brutal when the need arises. Or maybe this way give the terrorism the much needed media attention that they have been wanting and establish them as martyrs on the other side of our border.

Collaborating with Pakistan on combating terrorism is another line of thought. As this article points out:

If Pakistan truly wishes to turn back the tide of fundamentalism in its country, and stop exporting violence overseas, then it must have proper support and assistance from India.

Somehow it seems a little late for this. It’s been a while & they don’t really seem to be doing anything about it, as more and more cities are being attacked by the terrorist groups. These groups I am sure must have also appointed a creative lead for providing them with innovative names for their outfit (Deccan, seriously?).

I am also deeply worried by the level of infiltration that might exist in our organisations. It’s probably something that has not received enough media attention but I do believe that a lot of people on the inside are involved. Fake IDS, plans of buildings, secret information, access codes. I doubt if the terrorist intelligence are that good to do it all on their own. Mumbai Underground might have had a role to play too.

Other news items include the whole nation calling Raj Thackeray a eunuch who excretes from his mouth and that pretty much sums up his existence. The MNS has done nothing to help the situation in Mumbai and watched with their heads bowed as their city got molested in front of their eyes for three days.

As a parting note: We should have been smarter. We should have picked up the hints right away. And where were the hints? In this article which no one bothered to take seriously.

Pakistan is as safe a country as India and we had even promised state level security for the Australians and other teams. This incident only shows the double standards of Australian cricket,

-Shafqat Naghmi, chief operating officer of the PCB told fumed.

Clearly unmistakable.

Why I feel Yuvi is more attractive a cricketer then Sachin/Sehwag

Rishabh — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 05:36:00 +0000

As far as the game is concerned,one of the main reasons why I’d rate Yuvraj as a more attractive batsman than say Sachin and Sehwag is because in essence Yuvraj is a finisher. Often, Yuvraj is the last man standing steering India to a decisive victory, saving it from the gallows by capitalizing during the slog overs. Quite the same reason why Klusener or Rhodes were considered more attractive than say Jacques Kallis or Gary Kirsten for South Africa. In the end it comes down to match winning abilities. Yuvraj drives some deliveries over cover, scoops one over long off and flicks one of point to win the match for India. I am not taking away any credit from Sachin, however he was considered rather selfish at times (at least in test cricket) by some. Maybe it were just the times, who knows. Yuvraj’s elegant stroke play, his knack of finding gaps combined with his herculean looks make him ideally suited to be admired not only in sporting circles, as well as the fan base, a substantial portion of which were women.

Another reason why Yuvraj is particularly more attractive than Sachin is because Yuvraj’s entry into the team was at a time when our team was going through a renaissance phase. A time when we proved to many that we could rise from the ashes of mediocrity. It was during this time that Yuvi rose to prominence, as a killer fielder, fielding with a sort of arrogance that made batsmen think twice before stealing a run.

Its tough to isolate our thoughts and compare how we felt about Sachin when we first saw him perform. Hence, a situation now comes to surface where Sachin is ageing and hence has lost most of his aggression and is more cautious and leading more of a hermit’s life where as Yuvraj is at his peak; scoring consecutive centuries and still spitting attitude where ever he trots.

Hayden’s boo boo

Rishabh — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 04:53:00 +0000

Ah how good I felt after going through news portals last week.

What started with an angst against the passionate yet unruly Indian cricket spectators as well as the presumably lethargic Indian batsmen has now become a platform for us to showcase our achievements.

Reactions follow a typical pattern:

An introduction leading up to Hayden’s comment.

The next paragraph features why Hayden’s comment is factually wrong, with links to the relevant statistical data.

The third para demands that Hayden issue an apology; followed by some kinds words directed towards his mother.
Since the second paragraph would also unfailingly mention our wonderfully executed lunar mission, Hayden can give himself a pat on the back for contributing to this unique SEO method for promoting Chandrayaan-1.

Those trying to bank on satire have been dealt with severely, for example Their reaction to his post forcing him to apologize for his actions (seen in the update section of the post).

Akram is pissed and so is the BCCI. Australian Cricketer’s Association has even suggested a shrink accompany the team on every tour to tackle the stress their players encounter on such tours. Though the ACA have not mentioned explicitly mentioned Hayden’s name here, the implied reference should not be missed.

But then there’s the other side of spectrum too. People from all walks of life are coming forward and joining Hayden’s Sympathisers Anonymous (HSA). This tweet by a BBC Mastermind winner who has been identified solely by his initial J, says it all

Play Ball

Rishabh — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:30:00 +0000

Minutes before a friend’s birthday, where he would be subjected to the vilest of rituals, my wingie Yogesh had an interesting experience to narrate.

His teacher had a very innovative method punishing them while at school. She would make three children stand in a circle and slap each other in a clockwise (or anti clockwise) manner. As Yogesh explained it to me (and as you would have figured by now), this method went on fine till each student understood the dynamics of the situation and did not fall for the bait. Gentle nudges could never harm anyone.

It’s when one of them fucked up.

To express anger at the gentlemen who slapped him earlier, the second guy would whack the third guy. And it’d be proper. This would set the wheels in motion at top notch speed.

Such innovation should be appreciated. From the teacher’s point of view this is much better than throwing dusters and rulers at children and thus jeopardizing their career, instead why not let the students punish each other? After all, now the ball would be in the student’s court. Now all that’d be left would be how they’d play ball.

The Big O

Rishabh — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 06:09:00 +0000

Ah yes, its going to happen now.

Just like when Usain Bolt won, the news papers had a gala time coming up with headlines to suit their fancy. Bosey has articulated that in a brilliant post. Similar stuff is going to happen now.

Obamania, Breaking the Barracks!, Remember, remember the 5th of November and what not. Twitter is flooded with it and so is every other blog apart from the mass media obviously.

Come on people. Don’t pretend you weren’t expecting him to win. Quit acting so surprised, just like you did when Hilary was chucked off.

Source Pilani: Empowering Rural India

Rishabh — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:56:00 +0000

Inside Goenka Public School, which is situated in the bustling center of Pilani village, is housed one of India’s fastest growing rural BPO’s.

Welcome to the world of Source Pilani who are redefining the concept of CSR in rural India with their socio-economic approach to BPO’s.

A brainchild of L K Maheswari (the current Vice Chancellor of BITS Pilani), who convinced the Goenka family to invest in such a venture; he’s played a crucial role in scaling Source Pilani to where it is today. Giving a shout out to the alumni and getting them on board to man the ship, today the gritty team of Manoj Vasudevan. Sandeep Thalluri, Ashish Khandelwal and Bharat Bongu are putting in tons of man hours in order to put Source Pilani on the map.

The establishment of a rural BPO was mainly to tackle and capitalize on the problems faced by the urban BPO’s such as high attrition rates, increasing salary costs and sky-rocketing real estate prices. This lead to the belief that such a move would provide a host to some of the biggest opportunities such as access to a large pool of talented work force in and around Pilani, world class infrastructure facilities. Apart from this it would also help in building a brand name of the Goenka’s in the social entrepreneurship sector.

Today Source Pilani has several clients including some international ones. One success story which the founders narrated to me was regarding their work in the medical transcription domain:

“We partnered with Truworth to deliver Medical Transcription services. We have been consistently achieving 98.9% quality. Trueworth started realizing cost benefits of around 30%”

Source Pilani has also been providing data entry and form processing services to JhunJhunu (district in which Pilani is located) collectorate for e-Gram and NREGS. They have been delivering exceptional service despite the complex work flow. They deal accurately with a large volume of data of 890 villages and were recognized and felicitated by the district collectorate for the outsourcing services they provided

With revenues already in lakhs, an ever increasing list of clients, a stable workforce of 60 skilled personnel who are regularly rewarded based on their performance and a board consisting of BITS Pilani faculty and Alumni, things look bright for Source Pilani.

They are currently also participating in Tata NEN’s hottest Startup award, you can vote for them here

Alternatively, you can also SMS HOT117 to 56767

Thank you for all the memories

Rishabh — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 18:57:00 +0000

After nearly 15 years of watching him run back to his run up; skip, hop and fire some googlies, it’s finally time to bid adieu to Jumbo.

Easily one of the most humble as well as gritty players on the field, he never made his presence felt since he wasn’t the flamboyant kind. You would never see him lead any of the endorsements on TV, yet when it came to the field, he’d take charge and always deliver (pun intended). I guess that’s why it came as a sort of surprise when he quietly decided to say good bye to the game.

He was the learner, the studious kind with the determination to conquer any batsman who challenged him. He seemed like the checked shirt clad problem cracker in your IIT-JEE coaching class who would never get perturbed by any thing thrown his way.

Never a huge turner of the ball, his biggest strength was his line and length, deadly accurate. The number of times the batsmen missed and were bowled or caught leg before the wicket is simply difficult to count. And then there was the faster one. Kumble could easily pass off as a medium pace bowler. No wonder Nayan Mongia( India’s then wicketkeeper) started wearing a helmet while keeping up to his deliveries during the late nineties.

If asked about the three greatest performances of Anil Kumble, I’ll list them as:

Firstly, his awesome spell in the finals of the Hero Cup. At the end of it, he came out with figures of 6/12 against the West Indies. Here he just tore through the West Indies middle order.

Then the 10 wicket haul against the Pakistani Team at the Ferozshah Kotla. There was a little controversy surrounding this performance, the reason being the first wicket of Shahid Afridi was not out. However, such is the game of cricket. It’s about capitalizing on the opportunities that come your way. And capitalize he did. Only the second bowler ever to achieve such a feat.

And of course thirdly, one of the most memorable photos to have ever been shown on Indian Television. A bandaged clad Kumble jubilant after capturing the wicket of Lara

This particular performance in the West Indies wasn’t really anything spectacular as far as the result of the game was concerned nor did it bother the statisticians much, but the amount of patriotism that it spread throughout the country was extraordinary. Kumble was suddenly a war hero.

Over the years, he just kept on picking up wickets here and there. Little did one realize that he has accumulated 619 of those.

It was a very tough decision, especially when you have performed for 18 years and been so competitive,” he said at the presentation ceremony after the match had ended in a draw. But the body helped me make the decision. This injury also helped.”His departure from international cricket couldn’t have been more fitting.
-Anil Kumble, Jumbo.

Thank you for the memories!

A myth busting ad campaign

Rishabh — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:49:00 +0000

This seriously cracked me up. After I regained control over myself I was thinking that perhaps India too should come out strong with a similar campaign against the stereotypical views that some people in the west might be having about our nation.

But then there was also a little voice in my head which urged me to think otherwise. This was probably because deep down I knew that some of the stereotypical (just some) views about India were true. If a person were to confront me asking “Hey uh, is it true that there are like uh cows and buffaloes roaming near the entrance of the Taj Mahal?”, I would smile and say yes, sometimes.

But keeping such instances aside, I would love to see some campaigns which through their viral nature can bust some of the stereotypical views that people have about India , so that, the next time a foreigner comes to India, he isn’t startled looking at a Hard Rock Cafe here or people speaking fluent English.

Untitled for now

Rishabh — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 01:06:00 +0000

The last month got me travelling a lot. Sometimes with a specific aim and sometimes without any. Frantically trying to catch up with friends as well as my breath, whilst on a mission to cycle 60 kilometers even though my pelvic bone was almost fractured. Or leaving campus almost instantly in pursuit of a quiz 600 kilometers away whichas it turned out resulted in an ultimate test of endurance.

All I can say now is that it’s been an impulsive month.

What follows now is a brief session of post-Oasis blues (I’m sure I’m not the only one) which should hopefully get squashed by the sirens of the tests ahead.

Oh and btw:

If anyone is looking to buy a brand new XBOX 360 Core set, do leave a comment and we shall get in touch.

Weekend plans

Rishabh — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 04:55:00 +0000

A Nobel Prize Quiz organised by the Swedish Embassy at IITD beckons and hence I must try to make myself available for it.

Anything in the vicinity of Nobel, the person, the prize and the laureates threatens to mould itself into a highly unworkutable trivia oriented ghotu question which might be fired our way. True, that is just me being cynical, but somehow these sort of quizzes do give me the creeps.

That being said, I would love to be proven wrong, as I was during the quiz conducted by IMS where the questions were actually pretty decently framed and had, what we in the quizzing fraternity like to lovingly call, a funda.

Apart from the quiz, there’s also the added attraction of Barcamp Delhi, which is now in its fifth edition. It’s rather ironic that you might find me mentioning barcamp to people here and there and yet haven’t attended one myself. I could make up a list of perfectly justifiable reasons as to why I couldn’t make it to the hazaar barcamps that are held all over the country, but then you would just call me a cameltoe.

Moreover, I shall be representing the Mutiny at BCD5 and covering the event live sporadically. It’s going to be a tedious process juggling back and forth between a quiz and an unconference, however I think I’m up for it.

And for those who have heard about Mutiny going Print, I shall be there with the copies so that you can have a look. For those who haven’t, perhaps you would wan’t to have a look at this.

And now for the closing note.

It is not the same thing if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre or if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prize winner. A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form.

-Jean Paul Satre on why he rejected the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1964