Half-life

Hi there.

Hello sir, what would you like to have?

One macho coffee.

Macho coffee sir?

What do you call coffee with dissolved chocolate here?

Oh. Mocha coffee sir. Or Macchiato

Macchiato sounds good. Sounds like a machete. That’s good, right? Are they both the same?

No, Macchiato is black coffee with chocolate. Mocha is milk, coffee and chocolate.

Ah. No wonder Macchiato sounds manlier. I’ll have that then.

Sure sir. You can scan and pay.

Cool. Cool. Wait. If you’re giving me the bill now, how will I know when it’s appropriate to leave?

We aren’t pushy like that sir. You can stay as long as you want.

So I can stay all day?

Er. No sir, but you can stay as long as you want, within reason.

Ah. Within reason. That’s sort of subjective right? What all do you think is within reason?

Come again, sir?

Do you think it is reasonable to elevate certain mass delusions to absolute truths while newer ones are condemned?

Er. No?

Great. Neither do I. We have common ground then. I’ll stay for a couple of hours.

Ok.

5 minutes later

Everything ok sir?

No. I can’t find a good seat.

That one is pretty good sir. You get a full view of the street through the glass.

Why is that good?

Well. Look at that guy who almost fell into that pothole. Or that lady trying to shield her eyes from the sun.

Yes, so?

Well, this reminds you of how lucky you are to be inside.

Ah. That is good. Thanks.

7 min later

Yes sir?

You were right about the view, but the seats are no good.

Why sir?

That one has this weird straight back that cuts into your spine, and the armrest is strategically curved to bite into your elbow.

There’s an upholstered chair at the next table sir.

Yes, but that one leans too far back. And the table is too low. I either have to bend over to type, or I can lean back to enjoy the cushion but can’t type.

Oh.

I have to type, you see. I have a MacBook.

Right sir. Well, how about these tall chairs?

Those are better, but the seats aren’t cushioned. You can’t sit there for long.

Oh.

Did you design it this way deliberately?

I just work here sir.

Right. But you see what’s happening right?

What’s happening sir?

Everything in this place is designed to be a countdown timer.

Er. How so sir?

Well, the WiFi needs a log-in which gets refreshed every 30 min. The coffee is hot, but not too hot. I estimate it has a half-life of around 10 min before it becomes shitty room temperature liquid, leaving you around 2 min to drink the remaining half quickly before it gets worse in the AC. And the chairs, every damn chair is designed to make you get up after around 35 minutes. Isn’t that terrible?

Sir, I don’t even have a chair.

Exactly. Why are these counters so tall? Why can’t you be sitting at the counter?

They told us sedentary jobs are bad for health sir.

Bullshit. They want you to stand up so that everyone else gets a subconscious signal to get up.

I never thought about it that way, sir.

Look around this place. All kinds of shit on the walls, but not a clock. Why is that?

Why?

Because people think no one is asking them to keep track of time and leave. But they feel physically uncomfortable and make themselves leave. And then they come the next day to try again.

Sir, you’re the most depressing customer I have ever met.

The truth is bitter but better.

Is this what you’re writing about?

Yes.

How does it end?

As you can see, I’m still trying to figure that part out.

Does it ever end, sir?

There there. Don’t cry. It doesn’t.

Aren’t stories supposed to have a silver lining somewhere? Some kind of fucking moral?

If you want to make money, yeah.

So why the fuck are you writing?

Me? I told you. I have a Macbook.

You got a MacBook to write, or you’re writing because you got a MacBook?

Neither. I got it because it looks good in coffee shops.

What kind of a fucking reason is that? What’s the damn point?

Well, what’s the damn point of driving to a coffee shop to drink coffee you have at home for ₹250?

To drive me crazy?

You were already crazy. You stand here and sell people a lie.

That’s it you asshole. Get the fuck out.

Don’t push me. Ouch.

Crash. Wood cracking. Plate glass splintering. 

Hey. Bro. Are you all right?

Yes. Ha ha.

You have blood on your teeth.

How about that? I do.

Somebody call the police.

Nah. I don’t mind.

But he threw you through the glass.

Yes, but the glass is transparent.

What?

Yes, it doesn’t make complete sense, but pardon me, I just got thrown through a window.

What the hell is going on?

Look inside that coffee shop. Do you think you’re lucky to be out here instead?

After this, hell yes.

Fantastic. I’ll go home now.

Your laptop is lying there. 

That’s ok. It only looks good in coffee shops.

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Who Am I When I’m Not Me?

I walk around the block several times a day. In the mornings, I enjoy it. I usually have my daughter with me for the first round. I push her toddler bicycle while she holds the handlebars in front of her and pretends to control it. She looks for Bow Bow (dogs), Kitta (cats) and Ka Ka (birds). I look at the leaves rustling in the wind. They are attached to plants that are neatly ordered behind straight lines made with bricks, but the leaves sway in the wind like they know a freedom that is unknown to the roots, although they remain bound to them. 

A few hours later, I come back down on my own. I still enjoy it, but only if my mind allows it. Early in the morning, nature forgets that it is bounded by the walls of a city which hasn’t woken up yet and so do I. A few hours later, the world intrudes. I use the noise cancellation feature on my AirPods to block the honking and the angry engines, but then I can no longer hear the murmur of leaves in the wind. 

Every day, it’s the same choice. The blunt instruments we use to be ‘productive’ take a meat cleaver to things we love too. The borders we draw in our minds to make sense of the world also kill that stray daydream that was beautiful. 

But daydreams need a place to be born, kept safe from the world, ironically by the labour of people who live in that world. Those bushes I love are tended to every day by gardeners working in the sun, breathing the polluted air. Do they like their jobs, I wonder, or do they not have the luxury of wondering? Do I?

I went to a much more beautiful place than this a few weeks ago. Where trees didn’t have to fight for space with concrete. Where you didn’t need noise-cancelling headphones to play birdsong. But to get there, you need to pay with the hard cash you earn in this noisy world. The irony struck me when I called them up to book a room and they talked me through all that is on offer at the resort. The nature walk I can join if I arrive on time. About the fish feeding opportunity at the pond at 5 PM, and the price for it. I almost laughed. It’s like someone bottled up the real world and offered to sell it back to you.

It’s not their fault. At least they keep a bit of it.

I wondered if the workers running the place think of how they live in a place hundreds will dream of when they are sad, the happy place they try to keep in their minds while they look at fluorescent screens with their backs to the windows. I suspect they don’t.

There was a time when I did not need to pay someone for a walk in nature. A time when I slept on beaches, or passed out in a pine forest. A time when we saw a nice little stream rushing to meet the ocean and just jumped in, fully clothed. No one checked if it was time to feed the fish. I assume the fish fed themselves fine without a watch. So did the fishermen who asked for our help to push their huge boat in.

But that time was as ephemeral as the mornings in Bangalore before the traffic wakes up. It did not last, as it could not last, because they bottled up our world, and now we have to look away from the window till we have enough cash to beg for a bit back.

Godzilla beat up King Kong, then both of them beat up Mechazilla

I recently updated my social media bios and website about me section to include the word writer. It is a term I’ve used for myself on and off since 2008, mostly off. I was very proud of myself for doing just enough writing to earn that tag again.

I re-joined a writing club, now conveniently on zoom so that I don’t need to get off my ass. I bought a copy of Stephen King’s book on writing. Every weekend, I debate the finer points of writing with my new and old buddies. Today we spoke about one-act plays, a few weeks back, prose poetry. We have arguments about when to show and when to tell, and whether show don’t tell is a cliché in itself, waiting to be violated by bolder souls.

I have a movie review I need to finish, a novel I’m pretending to write, and a spreadsheet to track my daily word count. Instead of all that, I sat down to watch Godzilla vs. Kong, after several beers. If you’re wondering what the movie is about, there is something wrong with you. If you’re still asking that question, the title of this post should do. If you’re complaining about spoilers, fuck you.

The right question is, why is the plot of this movie the title of this blog post.

In the movie, the earth is hollow. And inside that hollow earth, at the earth’s core, you have mountains, trees, and most charmingly, sunlight. Kong’s ancestors had a nice ax, which did not pass on to Kong because they did not write a will, as is expected from giant titans who ruled the earth as apex sweet predators. As soon as Kong finds the ax, he also finds a nice charging point for it. Yes, the ax can be charged before use as a club to hit other monsters. Why, you ask? How else will you see it in the dark during chaotic battle scenes?

Show, don’t tell, we writers and wannabe writers say. This is why the movie makers cryptically called it Godzilla vs. Kong. It is cryptic for two reasons. One, it doesn’t say King Kong, leaving you very confused about the identity of the giant monkey, as confused as Lois Lane whenever Superman wore glasses. Two, it leaves out the amazing twist at the end, when Godzilla and Kong team up to fight Mechazilla, a millennial Kaiju who clearly spends too much time sexting and staring at screens.

The world-building is incredibly deep. You literally have to drill till the earth’s core to get to the titan monster world. The characters are amazingly layered, like the tiny tribal girl who taught King Kong sign language so he can keep whining about going home.

The story is so rich and nuanced, it felt like someone hit me on the head with my bookshelf, and then with each book, and then shoved my kindle down my throat.

I bought a copy of atomic habits to help with my writing habit, but Godzilla has atomic breath. Atomic breath made $ 96 million in profit. I googled “what can you buy for 100 million” and saw that you could buy Van Gogh’s ‘Portrait of the Artist Without Beard’, at its adjusted 2011 price tag of $98.5 million.

It was Van Gogh’s last painting, a self-portrait he gifted to his 70-year-old mother on her birthday to reassure her he was ok, shortly before he killed himself.

Van Gogh was an idiot. He should have made colors explode till they drowned out technique and made him money. Then he wouldn’t have died penniless and his mother would have known he was alright without a sad selfie.

Looks a little weird at first but grows on you

Looks great when drunk

Afghanistan

U.S.A signing off | Twitter video screengrab

I had a minor epiphany today, after examining how we all reacted to the news of the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul. I have recently been staying away from pointless arguments (for a time period so short that it is unmeasurable) but found myself in several today. To summarize, these are the different arguments I encountered or put across.

1. America bad, Taliban meh
2. Taliban bad. America bad, all bad
3. Afghanistan sad, but Muslims bad
4. All bad, you bad, I bad

Remarkably, this went on for hours. I am now realizing how pointless, simplistic, and black and white these arguments were, on an extremely complicated topic. There are some very real, tangible, non-bullshit questions here:

1. Was the U.S justified in going to war after 9/11?
2. Did the U.S plant the seed for the Taliban many years ago?
3. Was the occupation justified if it kept the Taliban out for 20 years, and freedom for women?
4. Did the U.S commit worse excesses during the two-decade war?
5. If the U.S had to leave, was this the best way to leave?
6. Why didn’t the Afghan army and government put up more of a fight?
7. Was there another way to bring peace and modernity to Afghanistan?
8. Is democracy ill-suited to some parts of the world?

As you noticed, the questions are bigger than the answers we proposed and fought over. Many of these questions might not have good answers, or at least answers that we can find today. But the questions are rather terrifying.

They are too big and affect the lives of too many people to be unanswerable. That’s scarier than the Taliban, at least when you are thousands of kilometers away.

Naturally, when faced with such big questions, we freeze up, then unfreeze to go after a recognizable bogey. All across social media, people are talking about the real problem, which might be Americans, liberals, oil wars, Muslims. It varies quite a bit, but the hallmark is that it is a recognizable problem, which is very comforting.

Like scared children, we pick up toy swords and duel each other till we feel better. Conflicts between nations are too big for us to comprehend, especially when they develop into such absurd caricatures. I was shocked by the image of an aircraft bearing the name of the most powerful country in the world taking off while surrounded by desperate Afghans running after it. How do you process something like that? How do you feel safe, or believe in things that help you sleep at night?

When we play with our toy swords, we can pretend the pen is mightier than the sword. Or a keyboard.

We can tell ourselves it will be different this time, as the people are the same.

Stream of consciousness blogging

Do you know how awkward it is to start writing in a blog you haven’t written in for nearly a year? Its a little like that neighbor or colleague you should have smiled at a year ago and find it weird to say good morning to anymore. Everytime I think of writing something I feel like I should have something momentous to talk about which justifies asking for someones attention after so long. Its nothing more than complacency and inertia of course, but complacency is a bigger road block than anything else in life I guess. Anyway, I had this epiphany the other day – instead of trying to come up with great content, why not just write a stream of consciousness variety of blog posts when I don’t have a fleshed out topic to write about? It reduces the burden of research and thought required, extensive proofreading, etc. and might branch out into more substantial, well thought out blog posts at some point. Most importantly, it reduces the entry barrier, or in my case, re-entry barrier to writing or blogging. It is possible that a reader might think the quality of posts is going down, but my last post was in April 2019. Its hard to go down from absolute silence. At least one other person seems to have had this idea before me – I DuckDuckGo’d ‘stream of consciousness blogging’ and found this nice post: http://webtrafficroi.com/how-to-write-stream-of-consciousness-blog-post/

Forget Aadhaar, when did our phone number become mandatory for everything?

Courtesy: A helpful forehead model available nearby, who wasn’t harmed during production

Compared to the rest of the world, Indians assign particularly little value to privacy. Maybe its because we are all used to living in joint families where everyone gets into everyone’s business. In most Indian families, you aren’t allowed to lock your bedroom door till you’re married. And you’re probably not allowed to lock it again after you have a socially acceptable number of kids, so I guess it shouldn’t surprise anybody that we don’t give a rat’s ass about the government or companies tracking us everywhere. In fact, when a company provides us an option to put a tracker on us through which they can watch us day and night to help us reach where we want or to stay safe from criminals, we all get a warm and fuzzy feeling we haven’t got since the days when our mom used to feed us khichdi and tuck us into bed safely. This is of course why the government and mobile companies can blast us with ‘link Aadhaar’ messages through every online and offline channel possible without sparking public outrage. There is one thing that can terrify Indians about the implications of losing privacy though, and that’s the prospect of actually having to pay taxes. As a result, the prospect of linking Aadhaar to all bank accounts and investment accounts have suddenly made many people seek their fundamental right to privacy for the first time.

You would think the newly privacy aware tax dodging populace would now care about other infringements on their privacy but if you want evidence that isn’t happening, just go buy groceries in any big supermarket or to the mall. The cashier scans the bar code on everything in your cart and then matter-of-factly asks for your phone number. If you ask why, the responses range from a puzzled ‘for billing sir’ to ‘loyalty points’ or ‘warranty’. If you look around, you’ll notice that pretty much everyone immediately gives it.The KFC outlet at an airport domestic terminal asked to scan my boarding pass, saying ‘for customer service’ when I asked why. I wonder what service the customer will get from handing over all that data? A discount? Decathlon asks for your number to keep all your purchases linked to your account and provide warranty using just that information. Some would argue that some of these are legitimate use cases and that you are free to say no. I would agree if you always had that option but worryingly, a phone number is now mandatory in the billing software systems used in many places.

Why on earth do we need to update our credit cards with Aadhaar numbers?

I’ve been meaning to write about Aadhaar for a while but never got around to it. But then today morning I got this message from my bank.

We have already linked our PAN cards with Aadhaar. Credit card companies already do their own checks to ensure you are credit worthy. No one gives you money without checking if you can pay it back. So how is this justified in any way? I posted this on Reddit today morning and of course Younews.in and the India Community Digest Facebook page lifted it by evening and acted like its their own post without ever crediting the India sub-reddit as usual. Anyway, on the original Reddit thread, there were over a 100 comments with different viewpoints. Let me summarize some of the views supporting this move and give my thoughts on each:

1. It helps detect fraud:

My response: No doubt it will. But the question is if the benefit outweighs the risks. I don’t think so. How about if I said we should give the keys to our front doors to the government or tap all our phones to make sure the cops can detect any wrong doing? The problem with these things is that you’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Yes, there will be some criminals you can find and catch by making everything and everyone track-able, but such a surveillance system can also be misused against everyday people, journalists, whistleblowers and anyone who gets on the wrong side of the ‘system’, whether its their fault or not. Who will watch the watchers?

2. This is just to verify your identity. Credit card companies use this to check who you are. The info is not collected by the government

My response: I’m not saying the government is building a database of your credit card transactions with Aadhaar numbers. Not yet at least. But, when you link your Aadhaar to your credit card, bank accounts, phone number and so on, what’s to stop the government or someone in power from asking credit card companies for transaction data with the Aadhaar number filled in and search for someones Aadhaar number to track all their purchases? Or do the same with mobile number to track all their calls? Are there safeguards in place against such things? Has this been thought through? At the pace at which Aadhaar is being seeded into everything, I really doubt anyone is taking the time to plug vulnerabilities in each one. Can we trust that banks and credit card companies will keep the data safe? There have been so many cases where I applied for a credit card and immediately started getting spam calls for all kinds of financial products from every company. There’s obviously leaks, especially in PSU banks. How do you make sure an employee doesn’t leak Aadhaar number along with phone number of target customers? What if an insurance company got that data and started using it to decide whether you should be given a health care coverage policy? Same question about telecom companies- what systems do they have in place to control all this? Even if some of them do have systems in place, do all of them have them? Who is checking the quality of each system? What legal protections do we have against such misuse of data?

3. In the U.S.A, social security numbers need to be given for credit card

My response: The U.S.A is not the panacea for all evils. What they do there is not necessarily the best way to do things. They have major problems with burgeoning domestic surveillance themselves. Lets try to stop our country from becoming a surveillance state instead of saying its OK if other countries have already done it. And if we are comparing, the U.S chose not to link things like fingerprints and biometric data to social security numbers due to privacy risks. Why aren’t we emulating that too

My biggest problem with all of this that none of this matches the official ‘Aadhaar is voluntary, not mandatory’ slogan. How is it not mandatory when you cannot have a bank account, mobile connection or credit card without it? How many things will require this before we start calling it mandatory? Will we one day need it to eat out, buy food or get treatment? Will we call it ‘mandatory’ only once someone says it is mandatory to have Aadhaar to breathe? Or will we still say ‘well, you don’t HAVE to live. Its your choice’?

I’m not saying a national system to authenticate citizen’s ID has no merits. Using it to make sure government welfare goes to the right people seems fair, although there has to be mechanisms to address cases where your fingerprints have faded and things like that. Using it to get things the government is offering for free is still fair. But I have to add a disclaimer that I’m not sure it is. It looks like that to me but if someone had put me in charge of deciding whether to make it mandatory for government welfare, I would try listening to people who caution against it instead of thinking whatever idea I had was sent down from heaven by the gods.

Seeding Aadhaar into every aspect of life is a sure fire way of making sure our lives are completely ruled by a number. I don’t think it is even possible to build in safeguards against misuse given the current scope of usage. Limit usage, build safeguards and expand only if you can figure out safeguards for expanded use. Don’t act like everything is a nail just because you have a hammer to hit them with.

If you want to see the original Reddit discussion, here’s the link: https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/7csv46/why_do_we_have_to_link_credit_cards_to_aadhaar/

I’ll be writing more about Aadhaar on this blog from now as well.

Its the season to fight over iPhones and Android again

Every September or October, people start debating one of the most important choices in their lives – iPhone or Android. Already Apple haters reading this post are thinking of making a witty crack about how the price of an iPhone makes the decision a choice between food and clothing for a year vs. a half eaten apple you can’t even finish and therefore an important one.

To avowed Android fans, the eagerness exhibited by many to buy an iPhone represents everything wrong in the world. They consider the devices overpriced and the people who buy them snobbish fools who pay more for outdated tech. Apple fans on the other hand say they love the Apple experience and that Apple ‘does it right’, even if some of the features arrived first on Android. Android users tend to proclaim judgment about the people who buy into Apple a lot more than the other way around. As an Android ‘fan’ who switched to Apple a couple of years ago, I speak from personal experience. After years of being an advocate of Android, I put my beloved Nexus 4 in the cupboard and bought an iPhone 6. What surprised me more than how much I liked the phone was reactions from people around me. To many, it was nothing short of betrayal. They called me a sell out and declared that I had gone over to the dark side. Most of it was light hearted, but at least a couple of people really took it seriously and seemed to have changed their entire opinion about me based on my choice of phone. Most people never listened to my rationale for the switch but now that another iPhone and iOS version launched, the “you were one of us!” chorus has started again, so here it is:-

I used to really like Android. I would root every phone I bought and change the ROM faster than some people would change their socks. I would install apps to automate all kinds of weird things and even change the kernel to try and improve battery life or performance or whatever. Many a nights I would go home late from work, get bored in 20 minutes and then get to work installing a new custom ROM, only to have something go wrong and end up staying awake most of the night trying to make my phone functional again. It was pure tinkering joy at times and as good as a whiskey and a sad song at other times. The takeaway from this story is, I was NOT a casual Android user. When self proclaimed Android ‘fans’ come at me for my choice to switch, I look at them like how Amitabh Bachchan in Agneepath would look at Hrithik Roshan in Agneepath, or how Sylvestor Stallone in Rambo would look at Tiger Shroff in Rambo (yes, that’s coming soon, believe it or not).

Air Vistara’s condescending women’s day gesture is surprisingly popular among women

Air Vistara has launched #VistaraWomanFlyer, an initiative supposedly launched in March, 2017 in association with women’s day, but hitting the newsreels in late July for some reason. According to the Vistara website, they will ensure that “only a window or aisle seat is assigned at check-in”, and make sure that “uniformed Vistara staff will be available at the baggage claim area holding #VistaraWomanFlyer Arrivals Assistance placards, to assist women travelers with their luggage and with the booking of airport-authorized taxis, as well as escort such customers up to the taxi stand upon their request”.

Reflect on that for a moment. They will have staff with placards implying that a ‘woman traveler’ automatically needs assistance with just about every aspect of traveling. If you’re a woman and thinking that this is chivalrous instead of condescending, ask yourself if you would mind if someone stood outside a shopping mall parking area with a placard offering to help women with parking or at a car rental place with a placard offering help with driving. How about tuition centers offering free special classes for math then? Doesn’t sound as great does it? Gender stereotyping doesn’t stop being ridiculous just because it is sugar coated with the appearance of chivalry.

Do only women need assistance with luggage or car rentals in a new city? What about an elderly man with a walking stick? If asked this question, the airline will definitely say that their staff would help elderly men or disabled men as well on a case by case basis. Why not do that for women as well then, instead of waving placards to reinforce stereotypes?