More Evil Eyes

If I ever drop out of life and go back to grad school, I think it will be to study cultural anthropology with a dissertation having something to do with the nearly universal presence of the "evil eye." For those of you who have been reading this blog for a while, I wrote a bit about the evil eye and its presence in India.

In Punjab we do things like put little black marks behind our kids ears so "nazar na lug ja ve" (they look doesn`t get them). We have some Greek friends, who will spit (well sort of a fake spit) if anyone says something like "wow what a beautiful child you have." The theory goes, in Punjab and I suppose in Greece as well, that you have to do or mark something ugly to ward off the presence of the eye whenever the temptation of vanity is near. Well interestingly, here in Oaxaca, they seem to have an almost opposite tradition. Instead of protecting a child from the eye, the "looker" has to be protected.

We were lounging at a local cafe on the beach when a nice gentleman from Oaxaca city remarked on how cute our kids were. I was waiting for Ameen to spit, or one of us to grab a black pen. Neither of us moved due to the heat and comfortable positions we were in. I did manage to mutter something in my mind (I don`t realy believe in all this, but I figure the cost of complying is so low, and the even remotely hypothetical cost of not complying is, well, so high). Anyway, this man went on to explain that in the local tradition, if they see a cute child, they have to touch the child, otherwise, they need to go to a local witch doctor, and have him swirl some eggs (I think thats what I heard) around in circles and do something else I couldn`t understand but I think it involved smoke. Of course we granted him permission to touch the kids so as to spare him all the witch doctor effort.

Nayan played along well enough, but Ananya started screaming and ran under the table. We all laughed. Since then, I´ve noticed a lot of roaming beach seller types smile at me and tap the kids non chalantly on the head.

Yoga Man Sensations, Positive Vibrations, Yeah

Well its a big day in blog-land. It seems Blogger has finally upgraded me to the new Beta. I have no idea if it will work, since everything in this computer is in Spanish, and as everyone may know by now, my Spanish is non existent. Nonetheless, my blind clicking seems to have lead me to a new interface.

Today was an interesting day. I woke up, wandered down the beach a few miles, in search of ¨The Yoga Place.¨ I should mention some qualifiers. I´m not much of a yoga guy. 7 years ago, my wife dragged me to a drop in yoga place in the U-District. We were waiting in the sweaty-feet-stenched hallway with a naked, except for a leopord skin speedo, yoga man with a big afro stairing at me from his safe paper poster home. The site of this poster freaked me out. Fortunately I was able to concince Ameen that proceeding with the whole yoga thing was clearly a bad idea in light of this horrific oppressive image. Ever since that day, I´ve been leary of yoga types, with their tight stretchy pants, and perfect posture. So anyway, after Ameen booted me out the door, to ¨go fix my back¨ (I´ve been whining about it for years) while wandering down the beach, I realized I had no idea where this place was. In my early morning wisdom, I started to follow stretchy-pant-perfect-posture people that arrived out of no where. Sure enough I made it there.

So to the uninitiated, yoga pretty much sucks. It involves all the pain of climbing your mountain bike to the top of a peak without the added bonus of an hour plus lush single track adrenaline rush filled descent. Not only do you have all this pain, but it´s in particularly bizarre parts of your body. Apparently the woman here is some sort of Dutch yoga-God that attracts foreigners from all over the planet. Sadly for me, this meant I was the only clueless one in severe pain. I was determined to never come back, but alas, yoga-woman walked over to me and by simply looking at me for 10 seconds, proceeded to detail the location, cause and solution for my back pain, hand pain, neck pain, and every other geek-posture induced problem from the past 10 plus years of my life. She also ordered me to come back every day I´m here so she can correct the wrongs the modern-evil-computer-life has given me. Between her and my wife, I´m afraid I´ll probably be back.

Cabanas in Zipolite

Life: After an all night plane ride with stops through Thanksgiving-crowd filled airports, we finally touched down in lovely, inviting, and most importantly -- sunny and warm -- Huatulco airport. We left Seattle in the cold dark of night with snow in the forecast, and arrived here with sweat-on-brow and many layers of clothing to peel off.

My friend Matt (locally referred to as Mateo) picked us up at the airport. Its a very rustic town with the distinct Bohemian hippy vibe of places I´ve travelled to like Dahab in Egypt, Arambala in Goa - most traveller types have seen similar towns. There are no ¨normal¨ tourist types or infrastructure anywhere, in fact, with all the tension in the capital of Oaxaca city, there are very few travellers of any type. Nonetheless things are peaceful here, and we´re settling into a daily routine of meeting Matt´s many friends, playing at the beach, sipping local beverages, and most deliciously, savoring the very fine Italian cuisine here.

There are many Italians who have settled in Zipolite, and hence, there are many tasty wood fired pizzas to savor. According to a woman that hangs out at our hotel place, this (the presence of many Italians in Latin America) is because Italians grow up getting sent to the beach with their relatives as children and they identify with a Catholic country. Not sure exactly how all that stitches together, or whether I understood it all through my reliance on 8th grade Latin and 12th grade French to understand the blend of English, Spanish and Italian communicating it, but it sounds like the basis for an interesting theory.

Hopefully I´ll be able to upload some photos soon. Unfortunately we have no electricity at our cabinas, with the exception of a few solar powered bulbs, and my laptop battery is now dead since we stayed up watching Shrek last night all cuddled under the shelter of our mosquito net.

Mr. Macaca's Thumped. Democrats take Senate

Politics: Yesterday's news got even better today. Mr. Macaca, also known as George Allen, according to the New York Times, will be conceding sometime today. This means, the Democrats have a senate majority, and are now totally in charge of Congress. Here's a snippet:

Many election analysts concluded that Senator Allen was unlikely to close the roughly 7,000 vote margin separating him from Mr. Webb, who has already claimed victory. And the Associated Press, a widely accepted authority for calling elections, agreed on Wednesday with Mr. Webb, declaring Mr. Allen, a Republican, the loser. A Webb victory gives the Democrats control of the Senate, with 51 seats.

A senior Allen adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity said on Wednesday that if the margin did not narrow significantly, Mr. Allen would not challenge the result.

“He has no intention of dragging this out,” the adviser said.

Well the Sun is out, and its a bright day for Democrats

Politics: I remember the crisp November day vividly, it was 1994, I had recently finished graduate school at the University of Wisconsin, and I was driving straight to work in Chicago after a weekend of visiting friends in Madison. It was a long empty highway at 7AM, just me, NPR, and a few meandering cows in the Wisconsin countryside. For a hard core Democrat like myself at the time, the news was truly depressing. Newt Gingrich and his cohorts were giddy after having swept Democrats off the map nearly everywhere. I was shocked and revolted at the thought of Newt and his gang decimating the country.

Well after 12 long years of tiresome, frustrating, and downright skanky GOP incompetance, the Congress is back in more sane hands. While I can't say I love Democrats anymore, and in fact, I even hate the GOP less now than before, it still feels pretty good to actually win. Finally, we Dems can hold our heads up, and not be scared at the mere mention of the words: Karl Rove, and most importantly, the word Democrat today, is no longer synonymous with the word loser. Its indeed a time to celebrate. One of my hardcore lefty friends (the kind that just starts swearing up a storm if you even mention the word Bush) said he spent all night standing on his couch singing the Star Spangled Banner. I too am feeling so patriotic today.

While writing this, I also just got word that we took Montana, and are leading in Virginia. Looks like Dems are going to have it all! And to top it off, Donnie Rumschmuck just checked out. Oh yes, the sun is out in Seattle today, the sky is popping through, and even if the election machines are tampered, we still won!

Rain Rain Rain Rainy Darkness

Life: Well its raining again here in Seattle. Its been raining a lot. Its starting to flood out along the riverbanks, as it does every year this time of year. Its also dark. As I stare out my window, I see dark clouds hanging over the city, unyielding rain, cars rumbling by with their head lights on, and the sound of pools of water shooshed away momentarily by each passing car. Its that time of year when the weather drives people to jump off the Aurora bridge. Which reminds me, the other day a friend of mine told me a bizarre, sad, and macabre story.

He has a little boat that he tools around Lake Union with. He was under the Aurora bridge, relaxing, when he heard a huge explosion only a few feet away from him. Startled, he scanned around, and saw a number of people gathering on the shore, all crouching and pointing next to him. He looked over, and saw a big bloated woman. A police boat showed up, the two of them hauled the woman's body on board. The cop informed him that this is a known phenomenon here in suicidal Seattle. An unsettling tidbit of knowledge imparted to my friend by the policeman: apparently women always jump into the water, whereas men always jump onto the land.

Happy Birthday Nayan

I remember mountain biking at Tiger Mountain with my wife. It was a warm, sunny, midsummer day -- the day after a crisp rain. We had just started our ride, and uncharacteristically, Ameen said she didn't feel like riding that day. I smiled, nodded, and cruised off into the woods with Maya (our chocolate lab).

A couple days later, with my dear wife grinning and watching, I opened a little card informing me that one of the 3 greatest joys in my life (my wife and daughter being the others) was to be born in a mere 6 months.

My amazing son is 5 today. 5 years ago I was holding a tiny little baby and so amazed by the miracle of life God gifted me. The moment I first held Nayan, I assumed my son would stay tiny and in my arms forever. Well now my jaan is tough and tall; I struggle to haul him up to his bed when he's fallen asleep in the car. Nayan is strong willed, articulate, creative (like his mother), loving, intellectually curious, a great listener (when it matters), and an all around energetic ball of joy. Needless to say, I am the proudest father in the world today.

A Soldier's Thoughts

I ran across a truly spectacular blog called A Soldier's Thoughts which really deserves to be published in a book. It's Marine Sgt Zachary Scott-Singley's first hand accounts of his life in Iraq as an arabic translator. His writing is powerful; I wish every politician would read this daily. Here's a snippet from one of the best months in his archive; I can't bear to break up his post, so I've posted it in its entirety here. I hope he doesn't mind. Its a post titled: It was still dark...

It was still dark. I got dressed in that darkness. When I was ready I grabbed an MRE (meal ready to eat) and got in the truck. I was going to go line the truck up in preparation for the raid we were about to go on. The targets were three houses where RPG attacks had come from a few days prior. Sitting there in that darkness listening to the briefing on how we were to execute the mission, I let my mind wander from the briefing and said a prayer. "Just one more day God, let me live one more day and we will go from there..." It was the same prayer I said every day because every day I did the same thing. I left the base. With a small team I would go out each day on different missions. I was their translator.

There were different people to meet each day. There were some who would kill you if they could. They would look at you and you could see the hate in their eyes. I also met with people who would have given me everything they owned. People, that were so thankful to us because we had rid them of Saddam. Well, this day was not really much different from all those other days so far. After the briefing we all got into our assigned seats and convoyed out to the raid site. I was to go in directly after the military police that would clear the building.

The raid began without a hitch. Inside one of the courtyards of one of the houses, talking to an Iraqi woman checking to see if her story correlated with what the detained men had said), I heard gunfire. It was automatic gunfire. Ducking next to the stone wall I yelled at the woman to get inside her house, and when the gunfire stopped I peeked my head around the front gate. I saw a soldier amongst the others who was pulling rear security by our vehicles. This soldier I saw was still aiming his M249 (a fully automatic belt fed machine gun) at a black truck off in the distance. His was the weapon I had heard.

I ran up near his position and overheard the Captain in charge of the raid asking what had happened and why had this soldier opened fire. The soldier kept his weapon aimed and answered that he was sure he had seen a man holding an AK-47 in the back of the black truck. I was amongst the four (along with the soldier who had fired on the black truck) who had been selected to go and see what was up with that truck.

We were out of breath when we got to the gun-truck nearest to the black civilian truck(a gun-truck is a HUMMWV or sometimes called a Hummer by civilians, with a .50 caliber machine gun on its roof). There was a group of four Iraqis walking towards us from the black truck. They were carrying a body. When I saw this I ran forward and began to speak (in Arabic) to the man holding the body but I couldn't say a word.

There right in front of me in the arms of one of the men I saw a small boy (no more than 3 years old). His head was cocked back at the wrong angle and there was blood. So much blood. How could all that blood be from that small boy? I heard crying too. All of the Iraqi men standing there were crying and sobbing and asking me WHY? Someone behind me started screaming for a medic, it was the young soldier (around my age) who had fired his weapon. He screamed and screamed for a medic until his voice was hoarse and a medic came just to tell us what I already knew. The boy was dead. I was so numb.

I stood there looking at that little child, someone's child (just like mine) and seeing how red the clean white shirt of the man holding the boy was turning. It was then that I realized that I had been speaking to them; speaking in a voice that sounded so very far away. I heard my voice telling them (in Arabic) how sorry we were. My mouth was saying this but all my mind could focus on was the hole in the child's head. The white shirt covered in bright red blood. Every color was so bright. There were other colors too. The glistening white pieces of the child's skull still splattered on that so very white shirt. I couldn't stop looking at them even as I continued telling them how sorry we were.

I can still see it all to this very day. The raid was over there were no weapons to be found and we had accomplished nothing except killing a child of some unknowing mother. Not wanting to leave yet, I stayed as long as I could, talking to the man holding the child. I couldn't leave because I needed to know who they were. I wanted to remember. The man was the brother of the child's father. He was the boy's uncle, and he was watching him for his father who had gone to the market. They were carpenters and the soldier who had fired upon the truck had seen someone holding a piece of wood and standing in the truck bed.

Before I left to go back to our base I saw the young soldier who had killed the boy. His eyes were unfocused and he was just standing there, staring off into the distance. My hand went to my canteen and I took a drink of water. That soldier looked so lost, so I offered him a drink from my canteen. In a hoarse voice he quietly thanked me and then gave me such a thankful look; like I had given him gold.

Later that day those of us who had been selected to go inspect the black truck were filling reports out about what we had witnessed for the investigation. The Captain who had led the raid entered the room we were in and you could see that he was angry. He said, "Well this is just great! Now we have to go and give that family bags of money to shut them up..." I wanted to kill him. I sat there trembling with my rage. Some family had just lost their beautiful baby boy and this man, this COMMISSIONED OFFICER in the United States Army is worried about trying to pay off the family's grief and sorrow. He must not have been a father, otherwise he would know that money doesn't even come close... I wanted to use my bare hands to kill him, but instead I just sat there and waited until the investigating officer called me into his office.

To this day I still think about that raid, that family, that boy. I wonder if they are making attacks on us now. I would be. If someone took the life of my son or my daughter nothing other than my own death would stop me from killing that person. I still cry too. I cry when the memory hits me. I cry when I think of how very far away I am from my family who needs me. I am not there just like the boy's father wasn't there. I pray every day for my family's safety and just that I was with them. I have served my time, I have my nightmares, I have enough blood on my hands. My contract with the Army has been involuntarily extended. I am not asking for medicine to help with the nightmares or for anything else, only that the Army would have held true to the contract I signed and let me be a father, a husband, a daddy again.

Signed,

Sgt Zachary Scott-Singley

Candy, Candy, Candy -- I Can't Let You Go

Life: The morning after Halloween, and I see my two littl'ns hiding underneath the desk in the office, quitely shoveling candy into their mouths as fast as they can. Normally very protective of his "stuff", I asked Nayan, my 4 year old son, why he let Ananya (our 1.5 year old daughter) in on the action. The answer: "So she wouldn't scream." Of course -- how I could I miss that.

Birth and Death and Post-Mortem Evolution -- MusicID, Gracenote, MySpace and My World

It always amazes me how long technology can live after its been created, and the creators have since nearly forgotten about it, and completely moved on.

I started a company back in 1999 with some colleagues. We created an audio fingerprinting system to identify sound recordings irrespective of audio compression type, bit rate, codec, etc. If you're interested, you can read all about in a paper I co-wrote HERE or from one of the key patents available HERE. In any event, at the time I was filled with all these dreams of how far our technology would go, how it would be used all over the world; I was so convinced of our success, that I was even concerned about how my friends would see me when I was filthy rich. Well we sold the company to another company; at the time it wasn't exactly a price or situation to be thrilled about - the market was crashing all around us, our VCs were tapped out, everyone was running to survive, and we all had to get new jobs. My biggest concern was whether we'd have health insurance since my wife was pregnant with our first child. My next biggest concern was whether the technology would see the light of day.

After working like mad to realize technology whose base algorithms you once naively flirted with on a napkin in a restaurant, its truly depressing to know there is a very real chance of it going absolutely no where. I distinctly remember a moment -- standing in the shower sobbing -- distraught that all these good ideas could simply die. I then emotionally unplugged, got a job with some health insurance, and moved on; I had more important things to worry about, like the birth of my first child.

Well surprisingly it turned out the technology lived on. Gracenote started shipping it with a fancy new name and marketing schpeal. And now, after more than 5 years have passed, good old MusicDNA (our buzz word), now called MusicID, is still quite alive and thriving on this Halloween day with thousands of geeks buzzing about it on Slashdot, and making major news headlines like:

Social networking giant MySpace has inked a deal with GraceNote to use the company's MusicID audio fingerprinting technology to review audio users upload to their profiles to make sure it doesn't violate copyright. Using the technology, MySpace intends to block uploads of copyrighted music recordings; users who repeatedly attempt to upload copyrighted material will have their accounts suspended.

I might have thought it'd feel good having something I played a significant role in building from scratch take off. Mostly it just feels odd, maybe even bittersweet -- perhaps something like a tragic relationship that never worked out -- one with lots of screaming and yelling and hair tossing that finally ends in an abrupt departure -- many years later, through some random friend in a random grapevine, you hear that this ex is doing well.

deep-art.blogspot.com

I've forked off all posts related to my artwork and poetry onto a new site dedicated to these topics: deep-art.blogspot.com. If you are interested in these topics, make sure to update your RSS readers (I highly recommend Google Reader if you don't have one). The RSS feed is HERE and the atom feed is HERE. I may occasionally cross post for things like show announcements, etc. All other topics will stay here on good old Chalo Bolo.

I made this change mostly because I need a site dedicated to only artwork; I'm often handing out cards and pointing people interested in my artwork to a website - they seem to get confused at Chalo Bolo, perhaps due in part to the myriad topics. Also, I was excited to try out the new Blogger beta. One day I'll be migrating Chalo Bolo to the new Blogger beta, but so far, the G-folks haven't made it easy. The new site takes advantage of some great new features like labels, template based design, and inlined RSS feeds.

Have a look and let me know what you think.

Show at Glow Natural Health Center

Art: A few days ago I hung a show at Glow Natural Health Center. I hung about 15 of my recent paintings. Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera along so I could shoot some photos for you all. Anyway, its always exciting for me to see work hanging in a new place, especially a space with great lighting. What was particularly cool, is my friend Lindsie, who's acupuncture practice is there, ordered this very excellent wire-art-hanging system. It took me less than 45 minutes to hang the whole show, a process that usually takes a couple hours of hammering, wall destruction, and tense hair pulling. Because of these cute little efficient German made hooks that slide up and down picture wire, I was able to quickly adjust height, and hang, in an uncharacteristically calm, Zen-like fashion. I'd buy them for our house if it wasn't for the 100$ per hook price!

This painting is one of those hanging in the show. I recently shot it, along with some other paintings and have moved them to my Flickr site, so you can now see them in the splash photos and slide shows shown above.

William Utermohlen: Documenting his Descent into Alzheimers

Art: Rarely does a painter make it to the front page of a major paper in the US. Today is an exception. The New York Times is running a piece on William Utermohlen documenting his descent into Alzheimers. Its a rather goofy article in some ways - trying to almost linearly equate the resulting images w/ the progression of neurological changes. Nonetheless, the images are interesting. I hope I get a chance to check out the show one day, though I have no trips to NYC planned in the next few weeks. Here's a snippet:

The paintings starkly reveal the artist’s descent into dementia, as his world began to tilt, perspectives flattened and details melted away. His wife and his doctors said he seemed aware at times that technical flaws had crept into his work, but he could not figure out how to correct them.

“The spatial sense kept slipping, and I think he knew,” Professor Utermohlen said. A psychoanalyst wrote that the paintings depicted sadness, anxiety, resignation and feelings of feebleness and shame.

Dr. Bruce Miller, a neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who studies artistic creativity in people with brain diseases, said some patients could still produce powerful work.

“Alzheimer’s affects the right parietal lobe in particular, which is important for visualizing something internally and then putting it onto a canvas,” Dr. Miller said. “The art becomes more abstract, the images are blurrier and vague, more surrealistic. Sometimes there’s use of beautiful, subtle color.”

On the Tractor in Mohalon

Art: I recently finished this painting called On the Tractor in Mohalon. Its based on some photos I took last December in Punjab on our farm. My nieces from California and Nayan were running wild on the farm. I was busy giving scooter rides and coaxing the kids into posing for photos I knew I'd painting in the not so distant future. It was a glorious sunny day with bright yellow mustard fields in full bloom. HERE's a mini slide show of the painting with some detail shots.

What is Web 2.0?

Tech, Search: I've been thinking a lot lately about this whole web 2.0 business. The phrase is everywhere, as are evidence of 2.0'ness. I thought I'd re-read Tim Oreilly's classic paper called: What is Web 2.0. Its still amazingly relevant, and seems very prescient these 13 months or so since it was published. Here are some snippets I find revealing:

It is a truism that the greatest internet success stories don't advertise their products. Their adoption is driven by "viral marketing"--that is, recommendations propagating directly from one user to another. You can almost make the case that if a site or product relies on advertising to get the word out, it isn't Web 2.0.

One of my favorite quotes of this piece:

If an essential part of Web 2.0 is harnessing collective intelligence, turning the web into a kind of global brain, the blogosphere is the equivalent of constant mental chatter in the forebrain, the voice we hear in all of our heads. It may not reflect the deep structure of the brain, which is often unconscious, but is instead the equivalent of conscious thought. And as a reflection of conscious thought and attention, the blogosphere has begun to have a powerful effect.

The mind set behind Web 2.0 companies is so different. These build and deployment time descriptions seem so outrageous to software folks, but if you consider that 2.0 developers are in many ways marketers, but on a deeper application level, amongst other activities -- making widgets, and hooks that draw in users, it makes sense. Here's some more:

Cal Henderson, the lead developer of Flickr, recently revealed that they deploy new builds up to every half hour. This is clearly a radically different development model! While not all web applications are developed in as extreme a style as Flickr, almost all web applications have a development cycle that is radically unlike anything from the PC or client-server era. It is for this reason that a recent ZDnet editorial concluded that Microsoft won't be able to beat Google: "Microsoft's business model depends on everyone upgrading their computing environment every two to three years. Google's depends on everyone exploring what's new in their computing environment every day."

And finally, what is a 2.0 company:

• Services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability
• Control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them
• Trusting users as co-developers
• Harnessing collective intelligence
• Leveraging the long tail through customer self-service
• Software above the level of a single device
• Lightweight user interfaces, development models, AND business models

Book Review of Maximum City by Suketu Mehta

Book Review: I recently finished Suketu Mehta's fantastic book called Maximum City. I couldn't put the book down for many nights. If you have ever spent time in Bombay, or want to, you must read this book. While Suketu can be pretty dark at times, you have to trudge through to the end to get a little light. Sure Mumbai is a mess, but its also amazingly interesting. I don't think I have ever read such an intimate portrait of a city. Here's a snippet from Seriously Sandeep, a more patient blogger than I:

The book is divided into several major sections, each focussing on distinct and unique aspects of Bombay: Shiv Sena, Bollywood, the Mumbai police, the Underworld, Prostitution, and Spirituality. These exist in any big city but what distinguishes them from other cities is their uniqueness found only in Bombay.

I agree. It was fascinating reading about the Bar-Girl scenes. I had no idea this world existed - my many trips to Mumbai typically involve the relatively benign hanging out with relatives, the obligatory trip to Elephantus Island, and some tourist wanderings. For the uninitiated, apparently there are all these dancer bar places, where woman act sort of like Bollywood Geishas (i.e. not prostitutes, but the male idealized image of a young Bollywood sari thrusting heart throb) - they master this art of getting rather sketchy but often wealthy fellows to fall in love with them; the men throw tons of money their way, and if they're lucky, eventually get a continuously challenged pseudo-relationship. Equally intriguing were the Bollywood chapters and the gangster interviews; I found the author's following of the pious Jain family perhaps the most interesting.

On the whole, I give this book 4 out of 4 stars. Extremely well written, very captivating, and very original. If I had to bash anything, it was this very dark overall perspective the author seems to have - I would be concerned if this were your only exposure to India.

For those still reading, here's more from Seriously Sandeep:

Suketu Mehta both confirms certain widely-held myths and shatters certain others. For example, I didn’t know that one of the major contributing factors to Bombay’s urban crowdedness is the result of the misdeeds of a handful of powerful builders–the Rahejas are just one of them–who thwarted a well-thought plan to improve Bombay by expanding housing settlements to the West. Also the fact that several “sharp shooters” of the underworld often change allegiances from this don to that only for cash, and not out of loyalty or conviction. Or the fact that Sanjay Dutt’s character comes across as nothing more than a frightened school boy who likes to identify with the “tough guys” in the hope that they’ll protect him from other tough guys/bullies. Mehta traces this attribute to Dutt’s experiences as a school-going boy who used to routinely get beaten by teachers and bullied by his classmates. Hence his fascination with the dons, his passion for guns, and his obsession with bodybuilding, as the author remarks, Sanjay “was built like a brontosaurus.”

His soujourn with Ajay Lal (most names are changed in the book) a high-ranking cop makes for interesting reading. I however, found it hard to believe when Ajay Lal says he has not touched a single paisa as bribe. Blame it on my cynicism or plain mistrust. Yet, it is believable on several counts: Ajay Lal was prominent in unearthing the D-hand in the Bombay serial blasts, and instrumental in solving sensational crimes. His humiliation at the hands of his own department–transfers, inquires, etc–is the price he pays for his honesty. Mehta also exposes the murky details of “criminals in uniform” aka cops who went on a shooting spree, killing even innocent people merely on unfounded grounds of suspicion, shakes you. Overall, the picture you get is that the efficiency of Bombay cops is top class given the severe constraints under which they are forced to work. The author has titled this section as Second best to Scotland Yard, but the characters in this section say it is far superior to Scotland Yard. It is definitely believable.

Seattle South Asian Film Festival (ISAFF) - Opening Night

Life, Art: We had a good time last night at the south asian film festival's opening night. For anyone at all interested, I recommend checking out the festival this weekend. More information is available at: http://isaff.tasveer.org/. Ameen did a great job hanging our paintings. As you enter the festival, all of my work is off to the right, and Ameen's is off to the left. The work looked nice hanging in such a large open area. Its the first time I've shown this work from which is largely based on our last trip to India. Special thanks to Gogi and Monu for watching the kids!

Ah, We're Smiling Again

Life: While my car repair bill is racking up, the statistical joys of my daily bus ride continue to entertain me. Today I was prepared - I sat at the front of the bus and was determined to find more clues to explain the new Seattle malaise. I had no idea this little blog of mine was so influential -- thanks to all for ensuring that todays stats on my bus ride in were markedly better than yesterdays! Fully 17 out of 21 smiled back today and gave an appropriate equivalent of "I'm doing fine. Thank you." when asked how they were doing by our lovely bus driver.

This reminds me, Mark Twain once said "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."

Be Nice, Say Hi, and Smile

Life: I took the bus in today from my sunny little neighborhood in what I always thought of as "relatively polite" Seattle. My bus driver was this very happy jovial fellow, who always gave a hearty "Hello, how are you today?" welcome to each bus passenger. I decided to take statistics of how often people responded. Around Nickerson and 15th (about a mile since I started my count), only 2 people had responded pleasantly. Many people said absolutely nothing, some grunted something unitelligable, a few had a focused floor-stairing look with bulging headphones, and a mere 2 out of 14 responded pleasantly and politely with something akin to a "I'm doing fine. Thank you." I was totally shocked. That's a pathetically low number. Fortunately the next 4 people in a row were nice, to eventually leave the stat at a pathetic, but not horrific, 6 out of 19. What's wrong with people? Someone looks you in the eye, performs a service for you, says an unequivocally nice thing to you - smile back and say hello.

InFact Book Search - Search, explore and download free ebooks online

Search, Tech - We just made public a demonstration book search site. You can have a look at: books.infact.com. I'd love to get any feedback from you all. Here's a blurb from our FAQ:

InFact^® Book Search is a publicly available demonstration of searchable, free ebooks powered by the InFact vertical search infrastructure. InFact Book Search includes an automatically generated book index, similar to that found in a standard physical book, which allows you to quickly navigate directly to everywhere a character, place, organization, or other term occurs in the book. In addition, InFact, offers tips for any term you search for. For example, if you search for Robin Hood, you will see tips which include other characters Robin Hood interacts with. If you click on Little John, you will be led to all the merry adventures Robin Hood and Little John shared together. In addition, InFact Book Search allows you to quickly find out about things you encounter in a book. For example, if you run across the Sherwood Forest, but are not sure where it is, you can follow the information link for an explanation.