6 AM Pacific

My 2008 Wish “Less”

A very happy new year to all my readers. May you and your loved ones have a joyful 2008.

Wish lists are neat things. Unlike new year resolutions, they involve no effort on your part. And unlike predictions for the new year, you can’t be wrong about them. So I thought I would draw up a wish list and share it with my readers. Perhaps they could then add their own candidates for the wish list and then we could have a reality TV show where people from around India SMS (at premium rates) their wish list candidates and a panel of distinguished judges help us short list ten WLCs (Wish List Candidates) which we then take to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who tells us that he can do nothing about them unless Prakash Karat and Sonia Gandhi agree on each one of them.

Seemed like an exercise in futility so I decided not to do a wish list. Instead here is a “Wish Less”. It is based upon the premise that we already have too much of everything. More »

Tags: Humour

Another Ladoo for my Ladla

This trip, for some reason, I have been noticing a lot more obesity in India. From the just overweight to the can’t-get-out-of-their-airline-seat-themselves obese. Sedentary lifestyles have something to do with this, of course, but I sense that there is another major factor at work here - an Indian mother’s love. More »

Tags: Culture, Humour, India

Of Mice and Men

Researchers at the University of Virginia have studied the effects of jet lag on mice and the news is not good for us flatworld types. We may be looking at prematurely flat-lining, so be sure to write your wills.
More »

Tags: Humour, Science

My Secret Starbucks Name

One of the many challenges facing the global executive is the important task of pronouncing and spelling foreign names. Indians in the US do face some difficulty with American names – a strong Mallu accent can change a ‘John’ to a ‘Joan’ for instance – but in general they do fine. American first names are designed to be simple. The ones that aren’t, are mercilessly shortened to nicknames. I know many Tims, but no Timothys.

Americans pronouncing Indian names is an entirely different matter. More »

Tags: Humour