The one with the chrome grille

Exams are done. Another semester has passed. I’m four months older, but I have no idea how much wiser I am for it. Actually, I’d say I am considerably wiser. This has been one very busy sem, so if anything I’ve learned that things do not get easier with time :D

I read this article about the Fiat Linea today. Fiat will launch it sometime early next year. It will go head to head with the Honda City, Ford Fiesta, Maruti SX4 et al. And honestly, I think it’s the best looking car in its segment. There’s something about Italian cars. They’re beautiful. No other words. Just beautiful. Even the ones that aren’t easy on the eye will end up grabbing your attention. I guess it’s in their blood. The Italians have been masters of aesthetics and proportions ever since da Vinci put brush to canvas. You’ll never see something as radical as a Swift or as boring as a Corolla roll off an Italian assembly line. (Even the really boxy ones like the Fiat 124/Premier 118 have some redeeming qualities. They look noble and imposing from some angles) It’s another matter that until recently all those pretty Italian cars would break down at a moment’s notice. But they’ve been getting better all through this decade, which is a good thing. Art that you can live with.

One thing that struck me about the Linea is the fake chrome grille. Very few modern cars can actually pull off a full chrome grille. Some do away with the grille all together (A-Star, Spark), some have a barely-there grille (new Fiesta). Most have chrome bordering a black/body colour grille. But chrome on the Linea looks elegant, not overdone.

It reminds me of our car back home. We have a Premier Padmini/Fiat 1100-D. When it was launched back in the ‘60s it had a full chrome grille too. I love that car. Just thinking about it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and nostalgic. The fact is that older cars have soul. Some quirks that you get used to, that make them more endearing.

Call me old-fashioned, but I’d much rather have a column-shift than a floor-shift. You can actually feel the gears in this car slot into place, instead of the slick-but-vague feedback an 800 gives you (and I can’t really compare it with anything else, since these are the only two cars I’ve driven) Yes, it is very underpowered. But how fast are you going to go in the city anyway? You barely floor the accelerator and you’re already at the next signal. Or there’s some fool cow on the road. Plus, the engine’s simple enough that pretty much any mechanic anywhere can fix it. And it’s much safer than half the vehicles on the road. I don’t see any reason why I should get a new car.

In other news, I’m reading the compulsive confessor’s book right now. It’s very light and breezy, like her blog. And I like that the protagonist doesn’t refer to herself in the plural in the chapter title, the way eM does in her blog. I guess we all do that from time to time. It just seems more flattering to refer to yourself in the plural. (Note to self: If I do write a book as well, I can’t title the chapters “The one with…” I need to come up with something new)

My ticket back home is still in RAC. Hope it gets confirmed soon. Fingers crossed!

The ultimate soapbox

This is the article I wrote on blogging for the college mag. I promised that I'd put it up here. So, here it is, no changes, no cuts, no censoring :)

Blogs, or “weblogs”, are the new buzzword in communication. And blogging is an amazingly large phenomenon. Don’t believe me? Sample this: I did a Google search for the term “Microsoft”, and I got around 980,000,000 results. A search for the term “blog” returned over 2,200,000,000 results. And according to a recent survey, there are over 400,000 registered bloggers in India alone. That’s how big it is.

Now that I’ve got your attention, here’s a little history. Blogs have been around for some time now. The very first one (called links.net) was started by Justin Hall in 1994. But the blogging boom really took off only after Pyra Labs launched Blogger.com in 1999. Blogger.com (now owned by Google) is a blog hosting space. When it was launched it let people who knew very little about HTML coding create blogs for the first time. And as it turned out, everybody’s got a lot to say.

Different flavours
Broadly, blogs fall in three major categories. The first and most common is the personal blog. These blogs are about the author’s personal/professional lives, their hobbies and the like. The more popular authors write wittily and usually have a dedicated fan following.

The second category is the social commentary blog. The authors write about social/political events in their region and their analysis of what happened. These blogs can be very influential. In fact it is said that some of them had a major influence on the voting patterns during the 2004 US Presidential election.

The third category is the review blog. The authors review gadgets, software, books, movies, restaurants, tourist spots… you name it. Often, these blogs include local information that you won’t find even in the manufacturer’s official website. Although some of these blogs can be biased, the better ones give you a neutral, authoritative overview of what’s being reviewed.

Emerging categories include the PR blog, which complements an organization’s official website. Also you’ve got photo blogs, video blogs (or vlogs), news blogs… it’s a full house out there. Blogs are a great source of information and entertainment if you choose wisely.

The way I see it
I’m rather passionate about blogging, since I think it’s a great way to say whatever it is that you want to say. The ultimate soap-box for everybody’s opinion. And recently, I’ve started a blog of my own. It’s a personal blog. I don’t think I’m mature enough for social commentary, and not knowledgeable enough about anything to do a review J I find blogging to be very satisfying for many reasons. First, it’s the anonymity that the internet gives you. That means I can write about things that are close to my heart and not have people tell me, “You’ve talked about it (whatever it is)for the umpteenth time. Will you please just shut up?” Secondly, it’s a great feeling when someone you don’t know writes a positive comment on your blog. It means someone cares about what you think enough to tell you how they feel about it too. And thirdly it’s a challenge for me to top my previous post every time I write a new one. I’d like to think that my writing has improved since the time I started blogging regularly.

There are some clarifications I must add here. One, the ‘net is not truly anonymous. A fellow blogger told me about the time someone put an IP trace on him, and had information about all the sites that my friend had visited. Stalkers, either online or in the real world, are a threat for the more popular bloggers. Also, blogging can be fairly addictive. The whole process of writing all those little details and following up on comments can very easily wreck your routine if you don’t have the self control for it.

Now, if you think you have something to say that the world should know about, and if I haven’t scared you off blogging yet, you should start a blog of your own. I’d recommend using an established blog hosting space like Blogger.com or WordPress.com. Both have very clear, step-by-step instructions on how to create a blog. They also have comprehensive FAQ sections, which should help clear most doubts that you may have about blogging.
And finally, here are handy webpages on the facts of life – for bloggers! http://simonworld.mu.nu/archives/037779.php
http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/jul02/gak16.htm

Welcome to the blogosphere! It’s a wonderful place. I hope I’ll see you around!
(atlthough if you're reading this, the last line is pretty pointless)

Letting go

When I’m in my room, and bored (which is often) I like to sit back and re-read “The Know-it-all”. I’ve mentioned the book in an earlier post too. I like it because no single story in the book goes on for more than two pages. Each piece is part of a larger mosaic, but you can read each entry for its own merit.

It’s probably an inherited thing. Dad likes to re-read “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”. I tried reading it once, couldn’t get thru it. There is far too much philosophy in there for me to handle. Not in the actual text, but in the implications of what Pirsig says. Guess I’ll have to grow up a little more before I REALLY get what he’s saying. I am a teenager after all. For the next three months, at any rate.

Anyway, the reason I brought up “The Know-it-all” was this piece I read about Petrarch. A. J. Jacobs (the author), talks about what a loser Petrarch must’ve been to be hung up about a woman he never had a chance with, for a very long time (she was already married). He goes on to add that Dante and Byron were also hung up about women who never loved them. And how in the 21st century, those women would’ve got restraining orders slapped on those “stalkers”.

Then, he says it’s not so uncommon and talks about his friend who’s still hung up about his college crush, even though it’s been over 15 years since the guy graduated. Which brings me to the whole point of this post. Why is it so hard for us to let go of something we value, even if we can’t use it, reach it. To let go of something that was never ours to begin with. A false sense of ownership, of belonging. And when we “lose” it, be it a person, position or an inanimate object, it eats you from inside.

The reason I brought it up was that it hit me just how much this sounded like my own relationship with Rags. To be honest, there never was any real romantic love there. It was almost entirely platonic, most of the time anyway. And yet, when we decided that there was no real chance of it working out, it killed me. And I was hung up over it for a pretty long time.

That’s not the only thing that hangs me up. Another major hang-up is the fact that I’m in the college where I am. I may have had a chance of going into another college. But where I am isn’t a bad place at all. Yet in my weakest moments the “what if I’d been elsewhere?” question comes back. I’ve been fighting it for over a year and a half now. Haven’t been entirely successful till date.

Sigh, maybe the fact that there are no worthwhile women around here is really getting to me. I’ve already brought this up with two different people over the weekend. It doesn’t look like these feelings are gonna go away without a fight. Guess New year resolutions aren't so easy to keep after all.

A rather unremarkable week

Things that have happened in the last week:
P& I took part in a quiz organised by the economics dept. of Fergusson College. What were two science students doing at an economics quiz, you ask? By the end of the qualifiers, I was asking myself the same thing. The questions were a little bit of economic theory, and a lot of business trivia. (Did you know that the BSE is the oldest stock exchange in Asia?). As expected we didn’t qualify. Hey, don’t look at me. It was P’s idea. I don’t normally do business quizzes, regardless of what Subbu’s testimonial about me on Orkut says. And from now on I don’t do business quizzes. Period.

Speaking of Subbu, I’ve been having long chats with both her and Krish via Google Talk. Mostly because we’re jobless (at any rate, Subbu and I are) We’ve been talking about relationships, blogs (they’re both thinking of starting blogs of their own), break-ups, zodiac signs, network problems (the GODDAMN NETWORK in college is really, really SLOW). About the only things we haven’t talked about are why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings ;) I’ve also tried a few feeble attempts at flirting over the net. Krish told me off soundly, as anyone who knows her would expect her to. Subbu’s taking it in her stride, playing along…
It’s been a lot of fun. It’s almost like 12th standard all over again. A small group of us at the back of the class. Not particularly bothered about what goes on in the front of the class. Me trying not-so-subtly to get Krish’s attention. (Apparently my flirting STILL needs work. Krish’s words) Talking F1 trash with Subbu. Those were the days. Well, almost.

I’ve been re-reading this book Bertie gave me two years back, ‘The Know-it-all ’ by A.J. Jacobs. It’s the real-life story of an editor with Esquire who tried to read the whole of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. And he did it too, in the space of a year. I really like his style of writing. It’s almost like a blog. He writes about his thoughts as he went through the encyclopaedia word by word. For instance:
liar paradox
The ancient paradox goes like this: ‘If the sentence “This sentence is not true” is true, then it is not true, and if it is not true, it is true’. I feel very lucky I am not stoned, because if I read this after a bong hit, my head would explode.
I’ve picked one of the shortest entries, so that this post isn’t unmanageably large (yes, dear reader, I’m all heart). His writing is very informal and makes you feel right at home. I recommend it to anyone who’s looking for funny stuff, which can also move you at times, and gives it all in small doses. (Makes it almost like a paperback version of FRIENDS)

Blogs have been a recurring theme this week. I’m supposed to submit an article for the college mag on blogging. Tuesday night is the deadline. And I’ve got nothing. Nought. Nada. I mean, I could scribble some random stuff along the margin of a newspaper and it MIGHT still get printed. The Ed says hardly any submissions have come in this year. At this rate, come March and we’ll release the annual pamphlet. Or the college leaflet. Yikes!
But still, I’ve got to do something that’s up to my standards. Anyone who knows me will vouch. Seriously. I helped edit the school mag in 2006. (Back me up, people!) So, if you’ve got any ideas, suggestions, whatever, mail me. Ideas will be duly acknowledged. I’ll sing your praises in my blog, if not the article itself.

Weather’s been getting colder. Went below 8°C. Twice. And word is that Delhi’s gonna get colder next week. Damn! My Madrasi body can’t take it, I tell you. Why do we have to go to friggin’ Delhi for a fest? What happened to fests in Pune? Or Goa? Or even good old Madras, for that matter? Who in their right mind would give up Saarang (IIT, Madras fest) for St. Stephen’s? I guess my Director would, but don’t tell him I said so.

And finally, I’ve given myself a new handle. It’s how you’d pronounce the first letter of my surname. It’s also an acronym for Evolutionarily Stable Strategy (I can’t hide the nerd in me) Plus, it’s easier for someone to write to ESS rather than to Therefore I Am. And it sounds more like a name and less like a title (Therefore I Am, OBE anyone?) That way it actually is an ESS. Can’t be dislodged easily.

Is all. I take your leave. Thank you (Applause! Cheers! …no? You’re mean!)

P.S. For the record, Formula 1 by itself is not trash. It’s ONLY the coolest sport in the world. And Michael Schumacher is the God of modern single-seater racing.