New Anti Virus Software !

I have found a new effective anti-virus software. Impressed by it, I developed an advertisement for it. Here it is.

Are you looking for an anti-virus software, that is easy to maintain, does not occupy extra space or require lots of memory; or does not slow your computer; does not expire after one year, (in fact, it is free); and you need not update new virus definitions often. It can catch all the past and future computer viruses and malicious programs ..?

It is available now and it is called Ubuntu.

This is what I do now to my pen drive. Insert it into the ubuntu machine, before and after i use it in any windows machine, Clean it and put it in my pocket !!

As Tarsh says, there isn't any 'Computer virus', but only Windows virus. Switch to Ubuntu and forget about viruses.

Office, Boss and Colleagues

Unfortunately, Accord is not a typical office or workplace. It is an extended family and there aren't those office dynamics that are typical of many organisations.

When I started my carrier with a Central government organisation as a young management graduate, almost 10 of us stayed together and close to each other. Almost every evening when we meet, there will be a cribbing session. Each of us telling stories about our respective bosses. It became a sort of entertainment - after a hard day's work !

After 20 odd years of 'working', I am quite interested about this issue of work environment and organisational culture. The idea of putting Dibert comic strip in my blog was born out of this interest. I love that.
Sajan sent this cartoon strip about nine months ago. Quite nice, quite Indian and very commonplace. When I was in the barber shop last time, the person sitting next to me was having a shave. He got a call in the cellphone, answered saying, "Yes sir, I am in the office, leaving in half an hour. OK sir, good night sir", and then looked at me and grinned ...

More on Office dynamics later.

Pace of Life - 2

After my last blog on broken windows and life's stones, I was thinking about the arguments of the other side. In spite of this, why we go ahead with a fast pace ?

"That all these running around is in fact required. After all, these so-called difficult thingss only make life worthwhile and differentiate a better life from a merely-lived."

Came across a nice small story to illustrate this. I don't know whether I fully agree with this idea; but it was interesting and nicely told.

Was not able to decide whether to publish it in this blog or in my other one. Finally, decided to put it there. Anyway, have a look at it here.

Pace of Life

First, a small story ...

A successful executive was traveling down a neighborhood street, going a bit too fast in his new Honda. He was watching for kids darting out from between parked cars and slowed down when he thought he saw something.


As his car passed, no children appeared, instead, a brick smashed into the Honda’s side door. He slammed on the brakes and spun the Honda back to the spot from where the brick had been thrown.

He jumped out of the car, grabbed some kid and pushed him up against a parked car, shouting, “What was that all about and who are you? Just what the heck are you doing?” Building up a head of steam, he went on.

“This is a new car and that brick you threw is gonna cost a lot of money. Why did you do it?”“Please, mister, please, I’m sorry – I didn’t know what else to do!” pleaded the youngster. “I threw the brick because no one else would stop.”

Tears were dripping down the boy’s chin as he pointed around the parked car. “It’s my brother,” he said. “He rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheelchair and I can’t lift him up.”

Sobbing, the boy asked the executive, “Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He’s hurt and he’s too heavy for me.”

Moved beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the rapidly swelling lump in his throat. He lifted the young man back into the wheelchair and took out his hand-kerchief and wiped the scraps and cuts, checking to see that everything was going to be okay.

“Thank you, sir. And god bless you,” the grateful child said to him.


The man then watched the little boy push his brother down the sidewalk toward their home. It was a long walk back to his Honda.. a long, slow walk. He never did repair the side door. He kept the dent to remind him not to go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention.

Life has been throwing stones left, right and centre. A not-so-old man died of heart attack suddenly - he was considered the most pious and as having the proper life-style. Then, there are accidents. Some illnesses for parents, making the stay in Gudalur uncertain. But, these stones just make dents only for brief moments; and then ignored. Some big stones have helped to focus attention on important things like Family and Vennila during the last one year. Thanks, God, for the stones.

Indian Cow.

This is one of the timeless classic. We have read this many times, but still it tickles each time I read it. I am not sure whether it is true, but hilarious all the same. I hope people outside India can also appreciate this blog ...

CALCUTTA’S “the Telegraph” has got hold of an answer paper of a candidate at the recent UPSC examinations. The candidate has written an essay on the Indian cow:

The COW

The cow is a success ful animal. Also he is quadrupud, and because he is female, he give milk, but will do so when he is got child. He is same like God, sacred to Hindus and useful to man. But he has got four legs together. Two are forward and two are afterwards. His whole body can be utilised for use. More so the milk. What can it do? Various ghee, butter, cream, curd, why and the condensed milk and so forth. Also he is useful to cobbler, watermans and mankind generally.

His motion is slow. Also his other motion is much useful to trees, plants as well as making flat cakes in hand and drying in the sun. Cow is the only animal that extricates his feeding after eating. Then afterwards she chew with his teeth whom are situated in the inside of the mouth. He is incessantly in the meadows in the grass.

His only attacking and defending organ is the horn, specially so when he is got child. This is done by knowing his hand whereby he causes the weapons to be paralleled to the ground of the earth and instantly proceed with great velocity forwards.


He has got tails also, but not like similar animals. It has hairs on the other end of the other side. this is done to frighten away the flies which alight on his body whereupon he gives hit with it.

The palms of his feet are soft upto the touch. So the grasses head is not crushed. At night time have poses by looking down on the ground and he shouts his eyes like his relatives, the horse does not do so.

That is the Cow !

P.S: We are informed that the candidate passed the exam. Of course, he would have. So sound on his cows !

Professional Wisdom

After working hard in the farm, a peasant was resting, leaning at the bottom of a tall tree. His quietude was disturbed by the noise of a motorboke which stopped near the peasant.


A well dressed young man stood before him and said to him, "Are you the man working in this farm ?"

"Yes, I am working in this farm for a long time," replied the peasant.

"What manure do you apply to this tree ?"

"We normally apply cow dung and mulch."

"You are wrong. I am an agriculture consultant and I tell you if you apply nitrate, phosphate, urea and other such fertilisers, this tree will yield another twenty-five to fifty coconuts every month," advised the consultant.


The peasant on hearing this, looked up and down and said, "No, I am very sure, we will never get that."

"Why do you make such a strong negative statement ?", said the consultant.

The peasant replied sarcastically, "Because it is not a coconut tree."

[Read in the newsletter 'Data' of Palmyra Workers Development Society].

There are quite a few variants of this theme. Supposedly being a professional myself, I have to agree with the underlying message of this story. But, definitely professionals can add value working in villages or with rural communities. We can make a difference - if we spend some time learning which is coconut tree and which is not.

One thing is good. From the days of urban folk making fun of 'illiterate' villagers, we have come quite a long way where rural folk are making fun of the literate fools.

Tamil Writer Sujatha Passes Away ...

Read the Tamil version of this blog here.

One of my most favourite Tamil writers passed away this week. S.Rangarajan, who wrote under his pen name of Sujatha (actually his wife's name), was a prolific writer - wrote about any and everything under the earth. His series of essays under the title 'Katrathum Petrathum' - கற்றதும் பெற்றதும் - was immensely popular.

But, I loved him for his short stories in 60s and 70s; and especially for his early essays in the literary magazine Kanaiyazhi. The ones about young boys in Srirangam learning to ride bicycles, the first time he flew a small plane, the imaginary meeting between Sujatha (the writer) and S.R.Rajan (the critic) - both are himself - are really hilarious and wonderful.

How he kept himself abreast of the latest happenings; he could still write things that were interesting and topical for the younger generation are amazing achievements. Probably, he will be remembered for his work in making science and computers the topics of discussion in the weekly Tamil magazines. One of the members of the team which invented the Electronic Voting Machine, he was first a writer before a scientist or engineer.

Even in his essay about the first trials they made of the EVMs in Kerala, he brought out the excellent human element : How people in Kerala were enthusiastic about the electronic voting machines, how a marxist political leader who opposed the introduction of these machines vehemently, won the election and thanked the team with tears in his eyes, and how he was thrilled to see a nun coming running to the demonstration site ...

And, his interpretation and explanation of Thirukkural is a wonderful piece of creativity

I will miss his writings.

Fine Print. Speed Reading.

“Mutual fund investments are subject to market risks. Read the offer document carefully before investing”.

Try reading the above statement and find out how long it takes to read this completely. When I tried, it took me five seconds. But, when you watch advertisements in Television or hear them in radio, there are some amazing chaps who read this in just one second.

This is in fact the equivalent of what is technically called 'fine print' in the printed documents. Something the advertisers don't want to communicate, but are required to do just for legal reasons. So, you can see big advertisements in one full page of the newspaper saying, "Reduction sale ! 75% discount ! Computers for free ! Give any old thing at home and take back a new one !" But, in some corner, the advertisers would have printed in a very very small font size something like 'Offer valid till yesterday', 'Delivery charges extra, which may be 100% of the cost itself', 'husbands and wives - however old and working condition they are in - are excluded from the exchange offer', etc.

This is what is called Fine Print.

Now, when the companies started saying all kinds of things about the New Fund Offers by companies, assuring very high interest rates etc., the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) declared that a disclaimer mentioned at the top of this post is a must for every mutual fund product advertisement.

But, as usual, the advertisers tried to bypass this stipulation. While following the law, the advertisers kept the public from hearing it by reading this sentence in just one second. You can just hear some blahblahblah and it is over. I have always been amused by the way many fancy advertisements on Mutual Funds end - with one fast blahblahblah.

However, the SEBI circular issued last week is set to change all that. SEBI has mandated that with effect from April 1, 2008, the time for display and voice over of the standard warning be enhanced to five seconds in audio visual advertisements. In case of audio advertisements, the standard warning shall be read in an easily understandable manner over a period of five seconds.


“The rapid-fire manner in which the standard warning is recited in the audio visual and audio media renders it unintelligible to the viewer/listener,” the regulator said today, pulling up the mutual fund industry. Currently, the disclaimer takes around two or three seconds in a 10 or even a 20-second spot.

"In a 10-second advertisement, if 5 seconds are for the disclaimer, then what will it communicate?” said Jaideep Bhattacharya, chief marketing officer, UTI Mutual Fund. A mute point, of course. Now, I wonder, what they will do to get around this new stipulation ?
Just to get the ball rolling, here are some ideas from my side :

• The advertiser can take 4.5 seconds to say 'Mutual', but can complete the rest of the sentence in 0.5 seconds.
• If someone objects to this after seeing this advertisement for about 3 months, you can offer to change it. Then, the advertiser can finish all but the last word in 0.5 seconds and say 'investing' in 4.5 seconds
• Have a background music louder than the voice reading this sentence.
• We can ask a Tamilian like me to speak this English sentence in proper Tamil accent, or a Bengali / Bihari to speak in their respective accents, and broadcast it in other states. It can be technically English, but no one will be able to understand it !

I am waiting for April 1st to see how they will react. If any one has any bright ideas to help the poor Mutual Fund companies, please write to them. The best idea will get an attractive prize and will get Rs. 10000000 invested in a top class mutual fund*
* conditions apply. * Valid only if you are neither a bachelor nor a married person. * Fund will mature in 327 years. * You have to physically be present yourself to collect the matured amount

Modern Age - the quirks & ironies

We are living in the modern age. On several fronts - especially, technology and communication - we have made amazing progress, I am told. But, along with it, there are some quirky things; some ironical facts about our existence today. With each passing day (or, should I say 'as I grow older' ?), such claims are becoming louder and louder. Read in a magazine recently this news item.

"It is an amazing thing to be told that the effort needed to extract oil from several feet below the ground, ship it to a refinery, turn it into plastic, shape it appropriately, transport it to a departmental store, buy it and then bring it home for use ...

... is considered to be less effort than what it takes to just wash the spoon when you are done with it and use it again."

We are busy and are getting used to such dangerous things. Having a costly life-style is not only careless, but in fact dangerous. It may be okay for rich western countries to follow such life-style, but when a country of over 1 billion population starts adopting to 'use and throw', we are finished ! (I remember the nice words Gandhi had to say sarcastically against the spitting habit of we Indians - "The only thing we need to do to make the British quit our country is to spit together !"

When future generations study about our 'civilization' many centuries later - if human beings exist till then, of course -, then I wonder what will be their judgement ? Anthropology students, I am sure, will discuss something like this :


And, by the way, what is our modern age called ? We had stone age, iron age and what not ! Computer age ? Electronics age ? Science age ? Came across a nice cartoon which compared the different ages and presented an important common factor - which is clearly 'striking' ! Click on the following picture to see it in a new window :

There was a very good discussion on using computers in our village centres. We experimented having computers in three such centres for the last one year or so. Whether it is good and should we go ahead with introducing computers to other centres as well. Though everyone said that computers are important for modern age and future, there were some interesting comments.

"Many of us don't know how to operate. One or two people only use it. We don't know if what they are doing is work related or if they are just playing"

I told them this is not only their problem; but very big IT companies in the world are also 'facing' the same problem. Whether their employees working or are they just chatting with their friends or blogging or social networking through facebook ! (In India, reading the ball-by-ball commentary of cricket matches ?) They don't have a clue and they even try to block blogger, facebook and googlechat in their office network.

Another more important comment was this :

"Things were earlier a bit easy. If we want any data, we will open the register and read it ourselves. Now, we need to wait for this person and ask her to give us the print-out"

This is a real challenge. How do we make computer literacy more democratic ? How to encourage all our village activists access computers and use it just like they use calculators ? This is important; otherwise, it will create a 'class' within our team here.

The evolution of our species over the different ages is nicely given in this picture. At the cost of offending the monkeys, let me say that we are coming round a full cycle and are tending towards our early ancestors once again. Except that our tools and techniques have become a bit modern, but the instincts remain the same or even, more pronounced.


We Indians took to the mobile phone technology in the country quite well and the number of mobile consumers is increasing in the country every day. I was thinking, soon we are going to have the mobile number as the Citizenship number in India, instead of the social security number in western countries ! I am sure we will be able to embrace the computer technology as well - if it is utilitarian and useful for the common man - not just as recipients of information but as active users.