Jay Leno takes a bow

I happened to see the last episode of the Tonight show with Jay Leno, before he hands over the baton to O’Brien. I don’t watch the show regularly and can never profess to be someone who can judge. Anyway I don’t understand American humour too well. There are only the stray bits I can barely understand.

But I wanted to see this episode only because it was Jay Leno’s last. And I must tell you it was a good show; somehow the Americans ensure that their final product endears you. Jay thanked by name most members of the staff. Jay Leno introduced a girl who was born during the first season who was now 17.

Then he rolled back the curtain to introduce a stageful of kids who’ve been born to staff members during the show’s run. He could barely control his quivering lip and a tear. He dedicated the last show to many, among them his wife of more than 30 years and he said ‘This lady was there on the first episode and so she is today.’

This was his 3775th show in 17 years. And his wit shone when he said ‘I started the show when my hair was black and President was white’. I particularly liked the country song that James Taylor sang for him. I found the lyrics today on the net. Here they are

There is a young cowboy he lives on the range
His horse and his cattle are his only companions
He works in the saddle and he sleeps in the canyons
Waiting for summer, his pastures to change

And as the moon rises he sits by his fire
Thinking about women and glasses of beer
And closing his eyes as the doggies retire
He sings out a song which is soft but its clear
As if maybe someone could hear

Goodnight you moonlight ladies
Rockabye sweet baby james
Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose
Wont you let me go down in my dreams
And rockabye sweet baby james

Now the first of december was covered with snow
And so was the turnpike from stockbridge to boston
Lord, the berkshires seemed dream-like on account of that frosting
With ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go

Theres a song that they sing when they take to the highway
A song that they sing when they take to the sea
A song that they sing of their home in the sky
Maybe you can believe it if it helps you to sleep
But singing works just fine for me

Happy Quizzing 03

13. Which IAS officer of 1964 batch recently released his latest book ‘India and the global financial crisis: Managing money and finance’, that is a compilation of 23 of his speeches?

14. Who reportedly bought the rights of the movie ‘A Wednesday’, to be remade in Tamil?

15. Which two districts in Rajasthan together form the largest constituency in the country in terms of land area?

16. Which free-access social networking website recently introduced an Indian language interface to combat a similar interface offered on Google’s Orkut?

17. Who recently remarked ‘It’s a tax code that says you should pay lower taxes if you create a job in Bangalore, India, than if you create one in Buffalo, New York’?

18. San Francisco writer and blogger Stephan Zielinski translated the DNA code of this virus into a musical composition by assigning musical notes to various components of the protein. What virus was this?

Answers in a week

Religious goats

A goat was sacrificed at the Dahisar skywalk site by labourers because an obstacle in the way of their project had finally been overcome. The labourers were from a firm by the name of Danashree Developers, appointed by the MMRDA. Two labourers have been picked up for questioning. The work was suffering because of frequent leakages in the gutter line near the worksite. This is completely insane! No, not the slaughtering of the goat; that happens all the time, in all the places; I’m referring to the superstition that modern civilisation is still steeped in. Not much would be achieved by questioning the labourers; instead, society needs to reform and move out of such idiosyncrasies.

In the town of Unjha, 80 km north of Ahmedabad, a temple hero reportedly raised Rs. 5 crore in donations in seven hours. It was for the 18th centenary celebration of the Umiya Maa temple. And what will this be used for: a yagna in which 50,000 people are expected to participate. Where is the recession!! We know it’s a waste! Many of the religious practices probably in vogue earlier are not only completely irrelevant today, but also bear nothing to the results expected. Time to change!

What a week it has been!

The past week has been quite eventful for the subcontinent. India’s elections threw up a majority mandate to the Congress-led UPA, and more importantly, to the Congress itself. There is a new-found confidence, bordering on arrogance, in the Congress. The swearing in ceremony is to be held today.

Vellupillai Prabhakaran is no more. He was shot dead this week. Thus ends an episode in Tamil independence struggle and the collateral terrorism.

The IPL has seen quite a number of see-saws in this week, finally culminating in an interesting line-up for the semi finals today.

History on Dalal street

History was created on Dalal street on Monday when trading was halted for the first time ever on account of the upper circuit being hit. Matkets went up 20% withing a minute of opening. The BSE Sensex went up 2111 points to close at 14284 and the NSE Nifty rose 651 points to close at 4323.

The reason provided by analysts and the media was that the UPA had secured a significant majority and that the vote was for stability.

If Monday was a day of historic rise in prices, Tuesday was when market turnover created history. The value of shares traded on the Indian stock markets rose to Rs. 1.5 trillion. Apparently both short sellers placing orders and profit bookers were in the market. This caused the indices to close flat, along with the huge volme of trade.

Short sellers sell shares that they actually don’t hold, in anticipation of a fall in prices. When the prices go up instead, they have to place immediate orders to reduce losses. Profit bookers, on the other hand, are those who actually hold shares and book profits when prices jump, with a view to re-enter when prices drop later.

On Monday, short-sellers and profit bookers could not get an opportunity to do what they eventually did on Tuesday. The sensex has risen 75% in the last two months. FIIs bought Indian shares worth @2.14 billion (Rs. 10165 crore) net of selling in 2009, compared to a net withdrawal of $13.3 billion in 2008. The investment of Rs. 1.5 trillion is double the average turnover of Indian markets since March.

The victor and the vanquished

Over the weekend, the results of India’s elections threw up a comfortable majority for the ruling UPA government led by the Congress. The Congress by itself managed about 200 seats, up from about 145 the last time around. The BJP has lost out and is now at about 120. The Congress has not only defeated the prime political rival but also other fringe parties that earlier supported it in the current Lok Sabha.

The day after the election results are out is when all parties sit to take stock of their affairs and decide the course of action. The Congress will have to decide on cabinet posts, internally and and with allies. The BJP is in a state of shock. Their two towering personalities, AB Vajpayee and LK Advani have not been able to take it to the next level. Personally they are great leaders, capable of inspiring a nation. LK Advani is the best prime minister we never had, and will never have.

I feel truly sorry for LK Advani. He is someone who has seen everything, and still held on to his beliefs. I’m sure he would have had ample opportunity in his political career to compromise his position and succumb to the lure of power. But he has chosen not to do it. And there is no doubt that he is not only a great parlimentarian but an able administrator as well. This was his last chance, and there never will be one.

And see the irony for the BJP. Despite being defeated, it has not been wiped out. It has to spend the next five years as the primary opposition party. How would it keep up its commitment to that role for so long. They have done that in the past, but after having tasted power, it is a difficult task. The explains why Advani stepped down taking responsibility, because he can’t take up the role any longer and do justice.

How does the BJP now reposition itself as a credible alternative to the Congress, something that they’ve always done and wanted to do. All along they diligently played the role of a responsible opposition, waiting pateintly for their turn to come. But when their turn came, they were unable to enjoy full power, because “we had entered an era of coalition politics”. I’m not sure that assessment is correct. There will be a time when single party majority rule will come back. We only don’t know when.

The problem was that the BJP did not achieve complete power when it peaked, or maybe they peaked too early and too low. We can compare this to a sport tournament. Often teams that peak early are not the ones which win the tournament. You have to peak at the right time and reach the right level. Because once you reach the top, two factors come into play.

You start becoming complacent, and start imaging that you have achieved all that is possible and needed. And you start having a greater degree of dissent and noise from your newfound opposition. I believe both
of these happened with the BJP. And they’ve not been able to manage it.

In terms of internal democracy and freedom, the BJP scores better than the Congress. But without power, and complete power, the democracy is being tested. We must appreciate the BJP for continuing to remain non-dynastic or non-authoritarian despite the repeated tests it is being put to. You all will remember how Uma Bharati and Madan Lal Khurana were allowed to express their dissent last year.

But somehow we see only the dynasty-driven Congress coming back to the fore, irrespective of the fact that they are unfit to rule the country. This observation is true of organisations also. We often find promoter owned companies flourishing in the market, bul-dozing all that comes in the way, while professionally managed companies decay. And it won’t be long before the BJP’s democracy descends into anarchy. I only hope we don’t see that day.

Fake IPL gems

Time’s really running out for us now and we need to catch up on so many important things. Like last minute shopping, enjoying the massages and spas, trying our luck with the ladies etc.

In between all this, there was the small matter of losing yet another match in the final over. Which was duly done and dusted, and now we are back to our main occupation, looking for deals and some action on the side.

About the last match, well, it’s now safe to assume that team selection has hardly played a role in our performance. No matter who played, no matter who opened, no matter who bowled the last over, the result would always have been the same. If it were not for Chatterjee Kaku’s good wishes and Indra Devta’s blessings, we may have even returned without any points.

Apparently, losing to us is now being viewed as an offence that may warrant capital punishment.

Personally, I am most pissed with Dildo’s indifference to our plight. At least the Bubblies have someone nice and cuddly to hug after a loss. Who do we have? Bhookha?

Fake IPL gems

Dildo has finally realised that changing (and then re-changing) the name on the advice of a famous bollywood numerologist is not enough to win the IPL. For that, you need a team of players.

Bhookha has his own theories derived from some complex mathematical calculations done on his laptop. And given the results I am quite convinced that he uses pirated Microsoft software.

Actually, we are the happiest team in the tournament right now. We don’t have any more flights to catch as we continue to stay put. We don’t face any performance pressures like other teams do.

I can already see the Bevdaas standing in queue salivating…no, not at the booze stupid… but at the prospect of playing the one team they can always hope to beat.

When the boss cracks a joke, you got to roll on the floor with laughter. The whole team was in splits after that comment, although Appam wasn’t quite amused. Probably he doesn’t like people calling him only by his first name.

The view is that Little John is being sacrificed for a losing cause in our team. Fair enough, doesn’t really matter to us if we lose by 8 wickets or 9.

Yet another intense fielding session. And not surprisingly, hardly any dropped catches during practice. Looks like we always save our best for the real thing

I’d like to slip in a couple of suggestions from my side that may dramatically change our fortunes next year. One, allowing overage, underfit players to wear roller skates while fielding. Two, allowing wicket keepers to wear gloves even if when they aren’t keeping wickets.

India elections statistics and trivia

As we enter the last phase of polling in India for the Lok Sabha, I compiled this collection of statistics and trivia about elections and constituencies.

The general elections will be held in 543 Parliamentary constituencies out of which 499 will be newly delimited constituencies.

No of voters (2009) – 714 million
No of voters (2004) – 671 million

Largest LS constituency – Unnao, UP with electorate of 18,97,474
Smallest LS constituency – Lakshadweep with electorate of 44,424

Polling stations – 8,28,804 (2009) as compared to 6,87,402 (2004)

Highest number of polling stations in UP – 1,28,112
Lowest number of polling stations in Sikkim – 581.

Biggest constituency in terms of land area – Barmer (Rajasthan) – 71601.24 sq-km
Smallest constituency in terms of land area – Mumbai South – 13.73 sq-km

Highest voting percentage – 62.2 percent in 1957
Lowest voting percentage – 33 percent in 1967

Voting percentage in 1999 – 59.99 percent

Number of EVMs required this election – 10.25 lakh

The number of Parliamentary constituencies reserved for SC has been increased from 79 to 84, while for ST it has risen from 41 to 47, a net addition of 11 seats.

The Modaurichi assembly constituency in Tamil Nadu had 1033 candidates in 1996. The ballot paper was in the form of a booklet.

The Congress in 1988 won exactly zero seats in UP

Atal Bihari Vajpayee is the only parliamentarian to be elected from four different states- UP, Gujarat, MP and Delhi. He has won from six different constituencies: Balrampur – 1957, 1967, Gwalior – 1971, New Delhi – 1977, 1980, Vidisha- 1991, Gandhinagar – 1996, Lucknow – 1991, 1996, 1998.

Elections in 1950s were carried out using different ballot boxes for each candidate, rather than voting on ballot paper! Different coloured boxes represented different parties.

BJP won Lok Sabha seats for the first time in the states of Tamil Nadu and West Bengal in 1998.

Rajnandgaon in Madhya Pradesh and Dausa in Rajasthan have a unique feature- father, mother and son have represented this constituency at different times.

The lowest voter turnout in a polling station is three! It happened in Bomdila district in Arunachal Pradesh.
Voting Machines (EVMs) were first used in Kerala

The entire country, except the three states of Assam, Nagaland and Jammu and Kashmir, would be using the photo electoral rolls for the first time.

The highest number of candidates that an electronic voting machine can support is 64. If the number exceeds this, then manual ballot is used.

‘Ballot’ and ‘bullet’ are both derived from words for ‘balls.’ The Greeks dropped a white ball when they favoured a candidate, and a black when they were against. The term ‘blackballed’ comes from this too.

Respect our chicks

Animal rights body PETA on Monday asked civic authorities of major cities in the country to install a statue of chicken in prominent locations as “a mark of respect to billions of birds killed for food”.

Some interesting quotes

On ‘International Chicken Respect Day’ today, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said “billions of chicken were raised on factory farms each year and never have the chance to do anything natural and important.”

PETA’s chief functionary Anuradha Sawhney – “Erecting a chicken statue will elevate these bright, inquisitive birds in the minds of residents, perhaps convincing many to help by leaving chicken off their plates,”

Campaign co-ordinator of PETA Nikunj Sharma – “Chickens are fascinating birds that in some ways are as intelligent as mammals such as cats, dogs and even some primates. They are very social animals who like to spend their days together scratching for food, cleaning themselves in dust baths, roosting in trees and lying in the sun,”

Interesting how people spend (waste) their time and energies. Some waste on ‘chicks’, others on ‘chickens’