The steam ship, Enterprise

Jules Verne could write his book “Around the world in eighty days” in 1873 and show that such a fast journey was indeed possible.

But a few decades before that, the voyage from Britain to India was still done in sail ships that took well over 150 days.

Around the year 1815, the British inhabitants of India entered into the scheme for establishing steam communication. Not aware of all the difficulties of the undertaking, they were blinded by the possibilities of conveying letters and passengers to and from England in the short space of two months, instead of five or six by sailing vessels,

Tait’s Edinburgh magazine ( pages 571 and 572), published in 1838, provides a fascinating description of how the first steam ship sailed to India, in 1825,through a combination of private enterprise and incentives.

For the last fifteen years, the British inhabitants of India have been making the most strenuous efforts to establish a communication with England by steam-vessels…. In the infancy of steam navigation, it was a bold design, and perhaps premature, to attempt to carry steamers half the circumference of the globe, when the practicability of steam navigation had been demonstrated only for coasting voyages, or short trips of a few days, in Europe and America.
…

To promote this object, it was considered that the best means would be to offer a handsome reward to those who should first accomplish the voyage to India by steam, leaving the parties at full liberty to make their own arrangements, and follow their own plans ; and a subscription was accordingly opened, to raise the sum of £10,000 to be given to the first steam-vessel that should arrive at Calcutta within the space of seventy days after leaving England.

Captain Johnston, who had assisted in the plan formed at Calcutta, proceeded to England with the view of engaging with parties there to fit out a steamer, and secure the prize offered. On his arrival, a society was formed and the Enterprise, a vessel of 470 tons, was purchased, and fitted out either for sailing or steaming, with engines of 120 horse power. She was loaded with coals for thirty-five or forty days' consumption, which is four times as much as she ought to have carried, and only one depot was provided—at the Cape of Good Hope—where she could obtain a further supply, during the whole voyage.

The consequence of these arrangements was, that, on leaving England, the Enterprise was brought so low in the water, that her progress was much retarded, and her coals were all expended long before she arrived at the Cape; the same thing happened again, on the passage from the Cape to the river Hooghly, where she arrived in December 1825, having been 113 days from England instead of 70. This was doing very little better than a sailing vessel ; but one great point had been established—that the passage between England and India was quite safe and practicable for steamers; and the arrival of the Enterprise was therefore hailed with delight.

The stroke of genius

Many of you, dazzled by the brilliance of my blog posts, must be wondering how I manage to come up with these masterpieces. Do I have it all in my mind, as I start typing on the keyboard? Do I plan out the template and the paragraphs before I sit down in front of the computer, just as Hitchcock thought through every single frame of his movie, before he began actually shooting? In other words, do I have a pre-existing vision that I merely transcribe into words later?

I can’t reveal my methods, of course. Few artists or writers of any sort can and will tell how they do their fine things, says Professor Alexander (I don’t know the guy from Adam, but he was quoted in an essay that I read recently in an antique book that I bought for Rs 50.). Prof Alexander then goes on to provide some valuable hints on how geniuses like Shakespeare, Leonardo, Raphael and me actually work.

Pre-existing vision does not pre-exist at all. It only comes into existence while the technical and physical work of painting or writing goes on. To what may end by being a masterpiece an artist may come at first with a mind empty and stone-cold. It may be that “another commonplace model to paint” was all that Raphael thought as he began the Sistine Madonna.

Suppose it so.

Well, he gets his tackle out and starts. In a little while the mere feel of the brush in his hand begins to excite him; the cold engine of his mind is warmed a little; it inclines to move; there kindles in him a faint spark of curiosity about the being who is before him; the quickened mind enlivens the hand, and the brush moves more featly; eagerness is growing in all the employed faculties of the man; images, thoughts, memories crowd in upon him till he wonders at himself with a kind of alarm mixed in his delight - will he ever able to keep himself up to this pitch, he is now so much above par, so strangely endowed, for while it may last, with spiritual insight and also with an unwonted dexterity of hand?

With an ease and confidence that amaze him he sees, infers and conjectures new things behind the fleshen mask of the familiar model’s face. A wonderful creature, this sitter! Wonderful creature, a nursing mother! A marvel, all motherhood, all humanity. ‘What a piece of work is a man!’ So it goes on, and if he can hold long enough the pitch of his exaltation, this mutual stimulation of spiritual and technical power, a masterpiece may come out of it, a Sistine Madonna, a Hamlet or a Gioconda, a thing absolutely new and surpassing, where nothing like it has been before.

The portrait proceeds, not from the imaginative anticipation of the portrait that is to be executed, but from a lively and intelligent excitement, using the skilled hand
as its instructive organ.

My methods are fairly similar. I start out with an empty mind, staring at the white space on my computer and press a few random letters on the keyboard. In a little while, the mere feel of the keys begins to excite me, the cold engine of my mind warms up and before I know it I have produced a masterpiece.

On memorabilia

“Flamboyant Pakistan all-rounder Shahid Afridi's World Twenty20 jersey will soon find a rack at the historic Lord's Museum in London as MCC has requested the cricketer to donate his shirt for display says a news report today.

I have never understood the rationale behind such museum pieces. I came across a glass case once in some museum in Europe, that contained Napoleon’s hair (one hair). How do we know it really belonged to Napoleon, or even if it did, so what? What purpose did it serve lying in that glass case?

Same with Gandhi’s spectacles or his slippers. He might have been a great man, but his greatness would not have rubbed off on his glasses or dripped down to his slippers. These inanimate objects could not have acquired his aura. So, why all the fuss?

I watched a Grand Slam match on TV a few years back. After winning the match, Andre Agassi hit a couple of tennis balls into the stand, and they were grabbed eagerly. Then he removed his T-shirt and threw that too. There was a mad scramble, till one of the spectators emerged victorious with the spoils. What he would do with that smelly T-shirt is more than I can comprehend.

Blogging- dream and reality

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Leave those monkeys alone

In his autobiographical series titled “Over Seventy”, P.G.Wodehouse referred to a study in which nicotine drops had been placed on a cat’s tongue. The cat’s blood pressure was measured before and after the drops were administered. Sure enough, it registered an increase, proving that smoking was detrimental to health.

Wodehouse protested: Are we to give up the pleasure of smoking merely because some dumb cat couldn’t hold on to its BP, he asked. He went on to advise the researcher to grow out of her addiction to the habit of placing nicotine drops on the tongue of every cat that crossed her path. If every morning she told herself, “Today, I will not place nicotine drop in a cat’s mouth”, soon she would get out of the habit, he counseled.

I have similar words of advice for a dumb researcher in Wisconsin, who experimented with diets of monkeys for twenty years ( via). One group was fed a restricted diet, while another was fed whatever it wanted to indulge in. Preliminary conclusions, published in Science two decades after the experiment began, “demonstrate that caloric restriction slows aging in a primate species,” the scientists leading the experiment wrote. While just 13 percent of the dieting group has died in ways judged due to old age, 37 percent of the feasting monkeys are already dead.

Naturally, the conclusion is that all of us must eat 30% less if we want to live longer.

Are we, evolved human beings that we are, expected to cut down on goodies and go on crash diets merely because some monkeys in Wisconsin died sooner when they ate normal diets? Actually, the real problem is that the researchers are perversely addicted to the habit of restricting the diets of monkeys. If every morning they tell themselves, “Today I will not cut any monkey’s diet by 30%”, I assure them that they’ll soon rid themselves of the habit. It just requires some will power.

Google Listener

On opening my Google Reader, I find myself staring at several hundred unread blog posts and magazine articles. In less than 30 minutes, with some swift scanning and rapid reading, I usually manage to clear the backlog, confident that I will not miss out on anything interesting. I marvel at my own speed.

When newspapers began to be widely circulated and read, in the 1920s, Arthur Ransome lamented in an essay that there was far too much reading going on and at a galloping speed.

For a great many people, reading has passed from being a conscious into being an instinctive activity.

We are reading machines all wound up and going
And master whatever is not worth the knowing.


There was a time when a newspaper was a handwritten letter of gossip which, when came from town, would suffice a countryside for a fortnight.Then it became a printed folio sheet.Today, spread out, it becomes as big as a blanket, and we get new one wice a day.It is only when newspaper is a rarity that it becomes read in full….

Normally, in England, people do not read the whole paper. There is too much of it. Instead they have by practice learnt to look through it in such a way that they can be confident that nothing of interest would have missed their attention…

Once upon a time everybody recognised that reading was a form of frozen sound, and reading was then a form of listening. Today, with an over-developed ocular skill, we see a sentence, even a paragraph, at a glance and hear nothing at all.

So, the lesson? When you are reading, listen. If you are a writer, try to slow down your reader and force him/her to hear your voice. Resort to line breaks, pictures, smileys, wrong-spellings, whatever. Are you listening?

What's a home plate?

For the benefit of Americans, Coyote Blog explains cricket, in baseball terms.

As a public service, here is my quick description of cricket in terms American baseball fans will understand. This will leave out some details and arcana (just as one can easily describe the basics of baseball without mentioning catcher interference or running on a dropped third strike). Commenters are free to get all over me with exaggerated anger for any small mistakes I make. Note that I purposefully am using some American baseball terms for things in order to make the translation easier (Read on…)

Now, will someone please explain baseball to me in cricketing terms?

Is he for real?

Is Roger Federer for real? Or is he just something out of “The Matrix”?

When his wife Mirka Vavrinec gives birth in the next few weeks, is there a case for the Association of Tennis Professionals to order a quick examination of what flows in the baby’s veins?

Roger Cohen explains why, in his NYT column.

The passionate worker

There are some who have the ability to infuse passion and zeal into the most mundane or dreary work. I remember a bus conductor who used to have his distinctive and ‘signature’ whistle, a musical one that helped in lightening the mood of the passengers. At a traffic signal on my way to office, I often spot a constable who swings his arms in an animated fashion and almost dances while directly traffic, obviously loving his job. With some creativity, one can convert any monotonous or routine task into a piece of art.

Why, even a murderer can be inventive and resourceful. Hitchcock often took pains to point out that murder could be a ‘fine art’ too. He wanted his movies to appeal to the true enthusiast, one who would be able to appreciate the ‘individual expression’ in the planning and execution of the crime, rather than the crime per se. Shooting down a person or poisoning him was too tame and insipid. A victim had to be subdued by more subtle and creative means, to win accolades from the true connoisseurs.

To this category of imaginative professionals must belong “Thikkuvai Ram” ( Source: TOI) who was arrested in Chennai yesterday. Where ordinary burglars would clinically rob a place and move on to the next site, Ram brings a certain finesse to his job. He goes around with a backpack and when he spots a locked house pulls out his tools from the bag and breaks in. His area of interest is only gold articles. Having stowed that away carefully into his bag, this excellent fellow would proceed to raid the refrigerator and eat to his heart’s content in an unhurried and laid-back manner. After which, to complete the full cycle, he would move to the toilet and make full use of the facilities there. Not for him, the frenetic pace of life and the ‘loot and scoot’ methods of his fraternity. For Ram, burglary has other perquisites that need to be enjoyed and moments that need to be celebrated leisurely.

Burglary can be such a dull and dreary job, often carried out alone. Instead of cribbing about his lot and the drudgery involved, Thikkuvai Ram goes about cheerfully and brings in the element of ‘joi de vivre’ into the proceedings. May his tribe increase.

The bottom line

“Since the dawn of time, people have found nifty ways to clean up after the bathroom act” says this article in CNN.com…. The ancient Greeks used clay and stone; the Romans, sponges and salt water. But the idea of a commercial product designed solely to wipe one's bum? That started about 150 years ago, in the U.S.A. In less than a century, Uncle Sam's marketing genius turned something disposable into something indispensable. "

And the size of the toilet paper market in the USA alone? $6 billions.

The article adds: “The spread of globalization can kind of be measured by the spread of Western bathroom practices," When average citizens in a country start buying toilet paper, wealth and consumerism have arrived. It signifies that people not only have extra cash to spend, but they've also come under the influence of Western marketing.

So how ‘westernised’ is India, going by this yardstick? Well, according to The Hindu that quotes the World Watch Institute, toilet paper sales in India in 2007 amounted to just $ 7.7 million. The per capita consumption is one of the lowest in the world.

Hmmm. “Per capita” means “per head”. Rather a wrong choice of words to describe consumption of toilet paper, don’t you think?

Leading from the front.

Dhoni led from the front, reports The Hindu, after his match-winning performance.

This cricketing cliché “leading from the front” is something that newspapers love to use. Try Google search and the first page will throw up at least 3 entries pertaining to cricket.

Except when he leads his team in and out of the circular field, there is very little scope for a cricket captain to do justice to this expression. So, why this nonsensical headline?

Apparently, the usage is idiomatic and borrowed from the Army. The story goes that in World War I, there was an Army Major who believed in ‘pushing his troops from behind”. Once, when he sighted the enemy, he opened fire and was immediately rendered troopless.

So, during World War II, the Army manuals were suitably revised and the Majors instructed to ‘lead from the front” instead of ‘pushing from behind”.. Once, a Major who was following the rules laid down in the manual and was marching in front, instructed his troops to open fire. They shot him dead, rendering themselves leaderless.

Now, the manuals say that the leader must lead from the front, but must “pull to the side’ while instructing the soldiers to open fire.

Military techniques must keep evolving, you see. I hope someday that cricketing news headlines will too.

The "2009 BD Award"

If you scan the web, you will find several “bull shit generators” such as this one or this. These are indispensable tools to survive in the corporate world and to talk your way through. Without this in your armoury you are practically walking around naked, and will soon be dead too.

But, the good news is that, once you have mastered these tools and internalised it (see how I sneaked in one of the BS words), then the words start flowing effortlessly on their own. If you wake me up in the middle of the night and ask me what my business plan is, my rapid response would be” We are going to re-configure the processes and re-calibrate the metrices. We will clearly measure the deliverables, and then switch to delivering the measurables”. You get my point. Speaking such nonsense becomes second nature. I don’t need to outline any tangible plans .

And the beauty is that no one can question or find any fault in any of my statements. Will you dare disagree with me and say that “delivering the measurables” is not the right strategy?

For the youngsters among you, aspiring to become such garbage-spouting corporate leaders one day and seeking role models , my advice is that you should carefully read the “If I were the FM series” published by Livemint. Once every few days, a corporate leader is asked to reveal what would be the main issues he would tackle if he were to present the Union Budget on July 6th. Each of them has come up with mind-boggling fluff that not even the best of BS generators would be able to produce. Look no farther to choose your role models.

One worthy has stated,” Government should continue investment and accountability in infrastructural development, take comprehensive steps to address health and take broad steps in taxation, logistics, infrastructure”.

Another has pontificated: “Inclusive growth means a growth strategy where the aspirations of both India and Bharat are taken care of. (We should) initiate financial sector reforms for the development of a vibrant capital market.

A third declares authoritatively: Allocating higher expenditure for social sectors along with private sector partnerships to work towards sustainable incomes, education for all and health and medical services for all at affordable costs will receive topmost priority.

Yet another preaches: There is a need to define an ecosystem that will help track and realign implementation of policy reforms and increase speed of execution.

Ladies and gentlemen, the “2009 Bull-Diarrhea award” goes to, “To improve our current precarious fiscal situation, we have to look at both offensive and defensive aspects. We have to try to raise revenue, without raising taxes, and cut unnecessary expenses.”

Where have you been?

( via)

Real freedom

Commenting on Sarkozy’s remark on the burkha being a symbol of subservience and calling for its ban, Amit Varma says that it is colossally wrong-headed, and goes against the very principles Sarkozy claims to uphold.

"Classical liberals who believe in individual freedom, as I do, are appalled by some societies for the way they treat their women. The burkha is a symbol of this oppression, and obviously our hearts go out to women forced to spend their lives hiding their faces and their bodies from the world. But the operative word here is ‘forced’.

We are troubled by burkhas because they represent coercion. But not all women who wear burkhas, especially in the West, do so because they are being forced into it. Many women wear them out of choice, and we should respect that choice. We may disagree with their reasons for it—but really, once that choice is established, those reasons are none of our business. They have as much of a right to wear a burkha as to not wear a burkha, and to outlaw that option amounts to the same kind of coercion that Sarkozy is trying to position himself against."

In his column in The Guardian, Stuart Jeffries is critical too, but provides a different perspective:

When the French president told a special session of parliament in Versailles earlier this week, "We cannot accept to have in our country women who are prisoners behind netting, cut off from all social life, deprived of identity", he would have done better to hold his tongue, and instead reflect on that passage in the Philosophy of Right in which Hegel distinguishes between abstract and concrete freedom.

The former means the freedom to do whatever you want, which, as you know, is the basis of western civilisation and why you can choose between 23 different kinds of coffee in your local cafe, or 32 different kinds of four-inch wedges the glossies tell you look sexy this summer but in none of which you can walk comfortably. Such is the freedom of late capitalism, which seems to systematically strive to deprive us of an identity that we might construct ourselves.

For Hegel this isn't real freedom, because our wants and desires are determined by society. By those lights, a western fashion victim is as much a sartorial prisoner as a woman in a burka.Neither is really free. Those that must buy what someone else tells them are this season's must-haves are as much in mental chains as those who put on head-to-toe garment with netting for the eyes because of the strictures of the society to which they belong.

So, by this reasoning, none of us is really free, in the true sense. When you are lured by advertisers and fashion designers into believing that the body-hugging clothes in synthetic material and tight-fitting, toe-crushing, pointed shoes are what you ought to wear for the party tonight, then you are as much ‘subservient’ as a woman who you believe is forced to wear a burkha.

Conversation with daughter-31

Daughter: Appa, I heard this one today. There are two types of parents in this world. The first type keeps feeding their children fish everyday. The other type teaches their children ‘fishing’, so that they can get their fish themselves. Which type do you think you belong to?

Me: Er, I guess I am the fish.

Daughter: That doesn’t make any sense. Give me a proper answer.

Me: Look, there are two types of people in this world. One type has a burning need to classify the people of this world into two types. And the other type doesn’t feel this need. Which type do you belong to?

Daughter: You can’t answer a question with another question.

Me: Yes, I can. There are two types of people in this world. One that answers questions with answers. And the other that answers questions with questions.

Daughter: Get lost. With you as a parent, I will neither get the fish nor learn how to fish.

The Bible and the bullet

The original story:

A soldier leaving for battle was given a copy of the New Testament by his mother. She asked him to keep it with him always and that it would protect him. He did as told. One day, the entire platoon was ambushed and gunned down by the enemy. Only the Bible-carrying soldier survived. The bullet had been miraculousy stopped by the Bible in his pocket.

Woody Allen’s variant

Years ago, my mother gave me a bullet...a bullet, and I put it in my breast pocket. Two years after that, I was walking down the street, when a berserk evangelist heaved a Gideon bible out a hotel room window, hitting me in the chest. Bible would have gone through my heart if it wasn't for the bullet.

Mylaporean mystery

I just discovered that if you typed “Russian emphasis Mylapore” on Google search, and then pressed the “I’m feeling lucky” button, you would be instantly led to this blog post of mine.

Do you think that there is a sinister plot codenamed “Operation Plus Ultra” being unleashed by Mylaporeans to capture Russia? (Emphasis mine)

Take that, you spoilt brats.

Stephen Moore, senior economics writer for Wall Street Journal reports:

Last weekend I attended my niece's high-school graduation from an upscale prep school in Washington, D.C. These are supposed to be events filled with joy, optimism and anticipation of great achievements. But nearly all the kids who stepped to the podium dutifully moaned about how terrified they are of America's future -- yes, even though Barack Obama, whom they all worship and adore, has brought "change they can believe in."

There was broad consensus, says Moore, that this generation (his) has bequeathed to the next a legacy of "greed, global warming, and growing income inequality."

So, was Moore apologetic about it? Was he going to say ‘sorry’ to the next generation?

No way, he says.

I have two teenagers and an 8-year-old, and I can say firsthand that if boomer parents have anything for which to be sorry it's for rearing a generation of pampered kids who've been chauffeured around to soccer leagues since they were 6. This is a generation that has come to regard rising affluence as a basic human right, because that is all it has ever known -- until now. Today's high-school and college students think of iPods, designer cellphones and $599 lap tops as entitlements. They think their future should be as mapped out as unambiguously as the GPS system in their cars. CBS News reported recently that echo boomers spend $170 billion a year -- more than most nations' GDPs -- and nearly every penny of that comes from the wallets of the very parents they now resent. My parents' generation lived in fear of getting polio; many boomers lived in fear of getting sent to the Vietnam War; this generation's notion of hardship is TiVo breaking down.

So there, kiddos. Stop cribbing. Be thankful to your parents.

Leadership is all about.....

I am a fairly contented person and usually go around with a satisfied grin on my face. I am generally happy with my station and feel that life has been quite kind to me. But, there are moments when I do feel a tinge of sadness on being an under-achiever. One of those moments is when I listen to the ‘inspiring sermons’ delivered by highly successful men and women.

The other day, I heard Dr Narayana Murthy of Infosys, on a TV channel, waxing eloquent on what leadership is. “To me” he said, “leadership is all about creating dreams, building hopes…. To be a leader you don’t need to have money or fame or power. When you walk into a room and are able to bring a smile on everyone’s face, including your own, then you are a true leader.”

Meanwhile, the indefatigable Dr Abdul Kalam, at an event organised by Times of India, narrated the story of his life; how he used to wake up at 3 am everyday, how he used to sell newspapers, etc. “Dream big, work hard” he exhorted.

In London, on a holiday, Sachin Tendulkar talked to newsmen and explained for the umpteenth time that records and money don’t matter to him; what matters is the joy of playing for the country. Every time he goes out to bat, he can still hear the national anthem in the background that gives him a tingling sensation in his spine, a patriotic flutter in his heart, and a gushing blood flow in his arteries.

I am quoting all this from memory, so don’t sue me if I haven’t got the entire text right.

But, back to my point on the tinge of sadness I experience when I listen to these worthies spinning their gyan. Note that I am not being critical. I am just plain jealous.

It must feel awesome to be able to walk into a room full of people and then mouth such nonsense in an unrestrained manner, without the slightest worry that someone would stop you midway. As a successful person, you have earned this privilege. And it is the bounden duty of the less successful people to give you their undivided and rapt attention and absorb whatever you hold forth on.

This facility– the right to lecture and pontificate at will- is a perquisite that I would die for. “Leadership”, I would tell the hapless interviewer, “is all about knowing the difference between the snakes and the ladders which life throws at you at a random sequence”. Or, “To me, leadership is all about having followers to lead. When you look behind you, do you find someone tailing you? That’s leadership”. Or better still, “Money, fame, power. That’s not what success is all about. When you enter a room, are people out there able to switch off all the lights in the room, and get illumination only by the glow from your radiant face. To me, that’s success”.

What I would give to talk such crap and still get people to ‘put their hands together” for a round of applause!

The next bonanza for IT

Ever since the Wrong Brothers caused the first air crash a century back, efforts have been on to reduce human error. One way to do that, it was believed, was to let computers do the flying. An old joke among pilots is that to fly a modern aeroplane all you need are a computer, a pilot and a dog. The computer’s job is to fly the plane. The pilot’s job is to feed the dog. The dog’s job is to bite the pilot if he tries to touch anything.

That may be an exaggeration, says The Economist, but not by much: most long-haul flights are handled by autopilots from just after take-off until right before landing. And if the airport has the necessary technology, even the landing can be handed to the computer.

Trains are going the same way, adds the article: driverless metro systems exist in several cities.

‘Engineers have long dreamed of fully automating the motor car. Cars are more complicated because they must navigate a road system that is much more extensive and much less standardised than a rail network. Roads are anarchic places compared with railways, which tend to be fenced off. That helps to stop people or animals getting on to the tracks. An automatic car would have to deal with all sorts of unexpected hazards, from accidents in other cars, to steering clear of emergency-service vehicles, to stopping when a football rolls out into the road—with a child, still hidden from view, in hot pursuit. ‘

I predict that this is the next big opportunity ( after the Y2K goldmine) for the Indian IT industry. The Economist describes a situation, in which a solitary child pursues a solitary football as anarchy. This betrays a terrible lack of undersatnding of the complexity involved. Look at this video of a railway crossing near Bengaluru. Do you think any programmer from any other country would be able to comprehend or imagine these conditions that a fleet of computerised cars and trains must be designed for? No sir, this is a job for the IT Supermen from India.