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Remember the post Silly Ski Adventure — that me was being drama-queeny about a teeny-weeny minor accident we had.
I met a few friends yesterday for dinner. My friend’s wife — who grew in Connecticut and Illinois — had these tips for driving on ice and how to react if the wheels slip :
1. Drive as slow as you can. A 4-wheel drive only helps you get the car out of hard snow/ice — but once a car slips, it matters less whether it is a 2-wheel drive or a 4-wheel one.
2. Always brake when the wheels are pointing straight and never during turns. This also has some basic physics like area of contact and angle of momentum behind its reasoning.
3. Keep gently hitting the brakes to make sure the brakes are never locked. Unless you have anti-lock brakes, you need to do this.
Now the most important steps after tires slip :
1. Get your damn feet off the brakes. The intuitive reaction is to hit the brakes. You shouldn’t do this because the wheels already have no grip — braking will increase the difference in speed of rotation and the velocity of the vehicle. Ignore the physics mumjo-jumbo, but not the advice.
2. Usually, the car slips either towards the left/right. Follow step 1 till you feel the wheels have made contact with the ground. Once you feel this, turn your wheels gently in the direction of your turn. If your car is slipping towards the left, wait for the wheels to make contact and gently turn left so that you ease the wheels into the turn helping it make further contact.
3. Once you are in complete control, feel free to brake gently.
4. The best way to practise this is in an empty parking lot.
Let me know if the advice saved your life. If it didn’t, we won’t be hearing from you anyway. Namaste.
The blog stats to the right indicate that the six-figure mark has just been reached. But another milestone is coming up shortly and I’ll defer my speech for then. If you are a blogger who gets six-figure hits every month, week or day, go away right now !
Meanwhile, if you like the content at this blog, I suggest subscribing to the RSS feeds (link to the right), so that you receive posts right at your doorstep and the blog stats take a hit.
Regular readers who aren’t on Twitter, I totally understand if you prefer staying away from Twitter. But if you like the content here, you are missing out on a world of fun. You will notice that I have cut down on blog-posts here : whenever I have less than 140 characters to say, it goes on Twitter. I tried posting tweets as blog posts, but the model wasn’t sustainable (with all the formatting issues). So I strongly recommend that you follow the tweets; it is unlikely that you will regret it.
Namaste.
I said I didn’t know enough to review books, but that has never stopped others from writing. So here’s my review :
My Friend Sancho is Amit Varma’s first novel. He is India’s most popular blogger, one of the 50 most powerful Indians according to some list and in the top-100 on some other list. He is not on Schindler’s List, but if Vir Sanghvi is to be believed, he is on some eliti-list. Not that all this matters while reading his book, but it helps me fill up my first book review with random notes that make it sound like I know what I’m talking about, without you realizing that it is not true. Continuing the aimless prose, My Friend Sancho is like a cross between the two timeless classics The Heartless Wonder and Jumping From a Cliff. I recommend reading both before you touch MFS. You might have a hard time finding them, as they do not exist. But if you do read them, you’ll agree with me.
MFS has simplicity written all over it — 4 times on the covers, thrice on the sides and once in invisible ink. The invisible one should be easiest to locate — it is right on the front cover in black ink. I especially liked some of the literary techniques used in MFS — such as writing in English. If you understand English, you will understand this book. If you don’t understand English, how on earth did you reach this point ?
MFS is the story of a tabloid reporter Saurav Ganguly, whose first name is Abir. There are some interesting characters such as a girl, her aunt, Abir’s boss besides the usual ones like a lizard. I don’t think the lizard has a name — that was a another literary technique I liked. You might not agree, but I am the reviewer here. I will buy the sequel — if it is ever written — just for the name of the lizard. The suspense is killing me, and yet I am effortlessly writing this post.
The book has a lizard on its cover, and if reviews on Amazon are to be believed, the book attracts women .. and cows. So unless you are lactose intolerant, you will not regret buying it. If even this does not convince you to buy the book, you must be the daughter of the former Governor of Alaska.
So go right now to get your copy of MFS — but if the store is to your left, you should go left.
P.S. : On a serious note, I highly recommend My Friend Sancho.
I bought My Friend Sancho this time when I was in India and read it on the flight back.
OK that was flat — this calls for elaboration. I haven’t read a book since I-don’t-know-when. There, I said it. In fact, I don’t even remember the last book I completed. So yes, I am not as smart as all of you who read books. It shows in my writing too. I want to read as much as you do, but I have a life. In case that sounds offensive, I’m not saying that you don’t have a life. I’d rather have you admit it yourself. Being serious (Heh. This sounds like Being Cyrus, no ?), I am jealous of you.
So while I wait here, you should go and revisit the first line. Stay there till it has the desired effect.
MFS was a breezy read and didn’t take much time. I identified with the kind of humour it offers — and that made it easier. I am not reviewing the book because I shouldn’t; I don’t know anything about books or writing. But I will recommend the book. It is not heavy; it is a simple story that ends at the right moment, and I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t like it.
*****
I used to be an avid reader when I was a teenager. Somehow I lost touch. One of the reasons was my habit of reading a book from cover-to-cover in one sitting. I have read more than 10 hours at a stretch to complete books. The model wasn’t scalable as I started getting introduced to better literature. I still do not get how some of you read 2 or more books parallelly. And — for that matter — how you read a book over a week or two.
I have two options — either getting a hang of reading books in more than one sitting, or devoting adequate time-slots to read from cover-to-cover. I am going to try the second option, even though it hasn’t worked well for me in the last decade.
The medium and form of a book also play a role in reading. I might just have a trump card there — but I’d rather not reveal more.
I cam across this article on the religious influence of an organization called Tableeghi Jamaat on the Pakistani cricket team. It was fascinating to me, because I wasn’t aware of this nexus; neither had I heard of the organization Tableeghi Jamaat. Tableeghi Jamaat is a religious movement that originated in India around a century ago, and aims for spiritual transformation of Muslims. Their achievements include long beards of Pakistani cricketers. (Oh come on ! You can’t declare a fatwa for that line !)
I am pasting an excerpt, but you might want to read the entire article :
It was Haq’s instatement as the new captain in 2003 that opened the floodgates for the Jamaat. One could now see the team being given regular lectures by leading Jamaat members, including Junaid Jamshed who is on record as claiming that he also wanted to convert the coach, the late Bob Woolmer. Players like Shoaib Akhtar accused Inzimamul Haq for siding with those players who sympathised with the Jamaat and took part in the collective religious rituals enforced by the captain.
These players included Shoaib Malik, Salman Butt, Kamran Akmal, Yasser Hamid, Rana Naveedul Hassan (who at one point is said to have grown a beard to ‘impress’ Inzimam), and most of all, Yousuf Yohanna, who converted to Islam and became Muhammad Yousuf. Today he is one of the leading members of the Jamaat and was recently reported to have even tried to convert New Zealand cricket captain Danial Vetori. Though the bulk of the team joined the Jamaat, thus transforming the team culture from extrovert and flamboyant to fatalistic and (subsequently) somewhat uncompetitive, a divide soon developed when a handful of players refused to follow Inzimam’s Raiwind regime. These were Shoaib Akhtar, Muhammad Asif, Abdul Razzaq and Yunus Khan.
I loved the Bob Woolmer and Daniel Vettori stories. I am guessing this influence isn’t as pronounced in domestic cricket, so it seems like it would be quite a transformation for a newcomer in the Pakistani side.
Or all this is common knowledge on the other side of the border and seen as matter-of-fact.
*****
To speak in general, I feel uncomfortable mixing religion with sport. If this were purely as a psychological exercise for mental fitness, it would’ve been slightly different. But this is clearly not. A cricket (or any other) field is not a place for religious or political proxy wars. What is discomforting to me is the deviation from sportsmanship this could introduce. When you are fighting a proxy war, unsportsmanlike actions seem fair. And that is not the spirit of any sport.
Link via e-mail by Arun Simha.
This is totally WTF :
If you thought that would shake up the doctors, here’s what one of them had to say :
“I didn’t get in a fight with him, he got into a fight with me,” said Dr Sinomar Ricardo.
Okay.
******
Poornima W, who sent me this link, penned a few lines on the incident. I’m posting them here with her permission :
Hopes dashed,
Dreams splintered,
One of life’s greatest joys – robbed.
Would we ever know
What went thought that mother’s mind
As she lay on that cold grey delivery table?
Feet up
Vagina dilated,
Million drops of sweat
Glistening on her forehead..
Mouth twisted in pain,
Breath short and heavy,
As she tried to heave and push
Her unborn into this world
A world where man has intellect but lacks compassion,
Where mammoth egos tussled for power & control
As a tiny life wilted
Even before it could break free from its umbilical cord.
******
Baba Ramdev has been a consistent Dude of the Week for many weeks, but I think we should move on now. Whatever time we spent together with him, we will cherish. But we need to get over him, so our rebound Dude of the Week is Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari for his motorcade causing a childbirth in a traffic jam :
A Pakistani woman gave birth to a baby girl in an auto-rickshaw stuck in a traffic jam when police closed roads to let President Asif Ali Zardari’s motorcade drive by.
The woman was being driven to hospital in the city of Quetta on Thursday evening when police blocked roads for Zardari and his convoy to pass.
*****
On hearing this, Zardari ordered that the child be born again — this time in a propah hospital. His minions are working on it.
Hindu Jagruti has this superb page on why we shouldn’t celebrate Valentine’s day. Every Hindu must read it — funny stuff is rare now-a-days.
They have listed things you can do to stop the spread of Western culture. They also have alternate events you can celebrate :
Therefore do celebrate the following remembrance day programmes in February 2009 !
1. Revolutionary Vasudev Balwant Phadke Remembrance Day ( 17 th February)
2. Swatantryaveer V.D.Sawarkar ( 26 th February)
3. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Jayanti ( 13 th March, according to Hindu Lunar calendar)
If you’re a teenager, I am sure you’re thinking : Well, yes. I suppose I could celebrate the birth anniversaries of these great people. I’d feel proud to be an Indian, to be born in the same land as these brave warriors. But then .. this won’t get me laid. Nah, forget it.
I know online petitions and Facebook communities for any cause are silly. I’ll might just give you candlelight vigils. But this one raises the bar of silliness :
Australians eat tandoori chicken to protest attack on Indians.
Thousands of Australians, including Victorian Premier John Brumby, on Wednesday treated themselves to Indian cuisine like naan and tandoori chicken as they joined a mass dining event to protest attacks against Indians.
Brumby joined a few leading Indian community members like Primus Telecom chief Ravi Bhatia for lunch at Indian restaurant ‘Desi Dhaba’ in the up-market Flinders street. The mass dining is part of the Vindaloo Against Violence’ campaign launched as a reaction to a spate of attacks against Indians across the city.
The next time an assailant is about to attack an Indian, he’ll ask : Hey, aren’t you from that tandoori chicken country ?
Indian : Oh yes, yes ! That’s the one !! That’s me !
The attacker remembers the tasty, spicy tandoori chicken he had for free, and let’s the Indian go.
Or he thinks of that next morning, and goes ahead with his attack.
The WTF quote of the day comes from Education Minister of Maharashtra :
The actual quote seems harmless, but it isn’t.
“Exams are a part of life, but to be successful in life is what is more important for us and for your parents rather than gaining marks in exams.”
Success measured in any metric is no better than success measured in marks. You’ll find previous posts on parenting here, so I won’t repeat the drill. Now I believe that I don’t have a child, but I think new-age parenting is excessive and unhealthy. And few smart parents realize this.
*****
The other day, the subject of parenting came up when I was driving back with my skiing partner. He said When we were raised, we got the best of both worlds — we did not have over-indulgent parenting and we also had our freedom.
I agree.
