The VOCO Clock

The Voco alarm will lure a man away from his secret recesses with the sound of gentle birdsong, followed by a discreet cough. Then the comforting words "Good Morning, Sir" insinuate themselves into the room. This is followed by a message - a different one everyday (repeats after three months or so). They say things like

"A gentleman from Berkshire Hathaway is here to see you, Sir. He says he wants to offer you a position based in the Bahamas at a salary of Seventy Two million dollars a year, Sir." or

"The world is anxious to hear from you, Sir. May I inform the news agencies that you have arisen? Very good, Sir." or my favourite

"I'm so sorry to disturb you, Sir, but it appears to be morning. Very inconvenient, I agree. I believe it is the rotation of the earth that is to be blamed, Sir."

At the end of the message, a beep-beep continues till turned off which is then followed by messages like "Ghastly noise, I agree, Sir." or "Sir has a firm touch, but very fair."

The voice throughout is that of Stephen Fry, as every man's perfect valet. It is Gosford Park rather than Jeeves and Wooster. Sir requires gentle handling first thing in the morning. Sir can be difficult, when he wants to be, as we all know.

9 Bad Boys of Philosophy

You’d think that a philosopher could reason out the best way to behave, right? But you’d be wrong, very wrong.

1. Socrates, the Barefoot Bum

Notoriously ugly, clad in one coat long beyond its years, and always shoeless, yet possessed of charisma that made the youth swoon, Socrates was a fixture in the marketplace of Athens.

There he would engage people with the Socratic method, beginning with a question that seemed straightforward and easy enough to answer, such as, What is virtue? Never content with the first answer, his irony and follow-up questions would inevitably lead to contradictions or admissions of ignorance on the part of his interlocutors.

Socrates rubbed some people the wrong way, though, and was brought to trial on trumpeted charges of impiety and corrupting the youth. Defiant to the end, Socrates suggested that the proper sentence for his “crimes” would be free meals at the public expense, as he had done the city good. The jury gave him a hemlock cocktail instead.

2. Diogenes, a Cynic’s Cynic

Always suspicious of society and philosophers, Diogenes (died ca. 320 BCE) would stop at nothing to make a point. He once ripped the feathers out of a live chicken to disprove Plato’s account of human beings as the only featherless biped. Asked once what wine he liked best, his cynical response was “other peoples’.”

Alexander the Great, intrigued by stories about Diogenes, sought him out and announced, “I am Alexander the Great. What can I do for you?” “Stand back – you block my light” was Diogenes’ response. While the ordinary person would have lost his head after such an insult, Diogenes was admired all the more, as the great conqueror said, “If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.”

3. Peter Abelard (1079-1144), the Castrated Cleric

Sex scandals are nothing new to the Catholic Church. Take the case of Abelard, the influential medieval philosopher who, ironically, did important work in ethics and logic. The young cleric fell in love with a beautiful young girl named Héloïse, whom he was supposed to be tutoring, and they married secretly, though they lived apart.

Héloïse’s uncle, however, mistakenly thought Abelard had discarded Héloïse by placing her in a convent, and he took revenge by having servants castrate Abelard in his sleep. Abelard woke up and things were never the same between him and Héloïse (needless to say, things were never the same between his legs either).

The ill-fated pair were, however, reunited in death, buried together at Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris and immortalized in song by Cole Porter: “As Abelard said to Eloise, ‘Don’t forget to drop a line to me, please’” (from “Just One of Those Things”).

4. Marx: Big Heart, Skinny Wallet

Unable to find work as philosophy professor, Karl Marx (1818-1883) plotted a revolution. Working intermittently as journalist and largely relying on the charity of friends, Marx lost many apartments and even some children for lack of financial resources.

Declaring religion “the opiate of the masses,” Marx found no solace in a better world to come, but instead sought to change the one he inhabited. “A specter is haunting Europe,“ he said, “the specter of communism. The workers of the world have nothing to lose but their chains.”

History revealed Marx didn’t adequately anticipate capitalism’s ability to shift and change to avoid the revolution, as later workers’ movement won concessions in the form of labor laws, the welfare state, and five-day work week. So, the next time you sleep late on a Saturday, make sure to give props to the man who made the dream of the weekend off a reality.

5. Arthur Schopenhauer, Poodle-Loving Pessimist

The ultimate pessimist, Schopenhauer (1788-1860) viewed reality as a malicious trap, believing we live in the worst of all possible worlds. A notorious misogynist, Schopenhauer once pushed a woman down a flight of stairs. Grudgingly, he paid her regular restitution for her injuries until her death, when he recorded in his journal, “The old woman dies, the burden is lifted.”

Schopenhauer despised noise but inexplicably had a fondness for something more odious, poodles. A series of disposable poodles were his constant companions for most of his life.

Not a pleasant academic colleague, Schopenhauer resented the success of Hegel, whose philosophy he thought was the worst kind of nonsense. Perhaps planning to undo Hegel, Schopenhauer scheduled his course lectures at the same time as Hegel’s. The result, however, was an early retirement for Arthur.

6. Nietzsche: A Bad Boy Who Wasn’t

One might think he railed against the corrupting influence of Christianity and declared “God is dead,” because of his own misery (Nietzsche suffered from migraine headaches and poor digestion, topped off with bouts of insomnia). But the guy whose autobiographical Ecce Homo includes such chapters as “Why I Am So Wise,” “Why I Am So Clever,” and “Why I Write Such Good Books” was actually an unassuming, mild-mannered man. His belief in “the will to power” as the most basic human drive finds little reflection in his own life outside his fantasies.

Though he fancied himself a warrior and a ladies’ man, Nietzsche’s military service was brief and unspectacular, and he never had a lover. As a bad boy in college, he may have visited a brothel or two, though. One theory suggests that the insanity that cut his career short and institutionalized him for the last 11 years of his life was the result of untreated syphilis.

7. Heidegger, Nazi Sympathizer

Though he originally planned to become a Catholic priest, this philosopher of being was far from holy. He carried on an extramarital affair with his gifted student Hannah Arendt, who later fled Germany to avoid persecution as a Jew. This might seem a peccadillo, except that Martin Heidegger was an anti-Semite who embraced the rise of Hitler’s Third Reich.

Notoriously, Heidegger had his dictation page in his Being and Time removed in subsequent printings of the book, as it paid homage to Edmund Husserl, his former teacher, a Jew. At a time when intellectuals should have risen up, Heidegger sank to the lowest common denominator. What’s worse, he never recanted or apologized.

8. Bertrand Russell, Cambridge Casanova

An innovator in mathematics and logic, and one of the founders of analytic philosophy, at first blush Russell sounds like a dry guy. Yet his life was anything but dull. Plagued by bouts of terrible depression as a young man, Russell learned to cultivate a zest for life. This heavy-drinking, pipe-smoking professor was notorious for having affairs with his friends’ wives. He rejected organized religion with his famous essay “Why I Am Not a Christian,” but nonetheless had a passion for social justice, flirting with runs for political office and doing jail time for political protest, that last time at age 94. Notably, Russell was a leading intellectual voice against the war in Vietnam.

9. Michel Foucault, the Marilyn Manson of Philosophy

Always the outsider, Foucault (1926-1984) was the voice of the marginalized and oppressed, notably as a supporter of an inspiration for the Paris student uprisings of 1968.

Making use of Nietzsche’s insights on the nature of power and the method of historical investigation and exposure known as genealogy, Foucault challenged the legitimacy of dominant cultural structures. Suspicious of institutions, in works such as Madness and Civilization, The Birth of the Clinic, and Discipline and Punish, Foucault called for the abolition of prisons and asylums.

Himself a homosexual, Foucault challenged our idea of what is normal in The History of Sexuality. As a visiting professor at Berkeley, Foucault frequented the San Francisco bathhouses and developed a passion for S&M. Though he kept his disease a private matter, he was the first (and to date only) major philosopher to die of AIDS.

Bonus: Pure Genius – Thales of Miletus

Thales of Miletus (ca. 624-546 BCE), the first Western philosopher, set the standard for absentminded professors to come. Lost in thought, gazing at the sky, Thales fell into a well.

Ridiculed as an impractical dreamer, Thales set out to show that philosophers could do anything they set their minds to, including amassing wealth. One winter, using his knowledge of meteorology and astronomy, Thales predicted a bumper olive crop for the coming season. He cornered the market on olive presses in Miletus and made a fortune when the olive harvest met his expectations.

Remarkably, Thales predicted the solar eclipse of 585 BCE. He also measured the height of the Egyptian pyramids using their shadows. Thales is perhaps best known for arguing that water is the basic source element, that ultimately all things are made of water. He also argued that “all things are full of gods and have a share of soul,” a poetic rendering of the insight confirmed by much later science that all matter is always in motion.

Disney introduces its first Black Princess

The Walt Disney Co. has started production on an animated musical fairy tale called “The Frog Princess,” which will be set in New Orleans and feature the Walt Disney Studio’s first black.. er.. Afro-American princess.

The company unveiled the plans at its annual shareholders’ meeting in New Orleans.

John Lasseter, chief creative officer for Disney and the Disney-owned unit Pixar Animation Studios, said the movie would return to the classic hand-drawn animation process, instead of using computer animation that has become the industry standard like Disney’s own “Toy Story,” “A Bug’s Life,” “Toy Story 2,” “Monsters, Inc.” and “Cars” and Pixar's incredible "The Incredibles".

“The film’s New Orleans setting and strong princess character give the film lots of excitement and texture,” Walt Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook said who called the film "an American fairy tale."

John Musker and Ron Clements, who co-directed “The Little Mermaid,” “Aladdin,” and “Hercules” will co-direct the movie. The pair also wrote the story for the film.

Disney said its new animated princess — Maddy — will be added to its collection of animated princesses used at the company’s theme parks and on consumer products.

The film is set for release in 2009.

Dark Continent sees light

Plans to link Europe to Africa via a tunnel are gathering pace.

The Moroccan government has been holding talks with its Spanish counterparts to start the project, which would consist of a railway beneath the Strait of Gibraltar carrying freight, passengers and cars.

Work is expected to start in 2008.

Giovanni Lombardi, the veteran Swiss engineer who's been involved with the Gotthard pass in Switzerland and the Mont Blanc tunnel linking Italy and France, sees this as his toughest assignment yet.

A more responsible Media, please..

I was left quite depressed yesterday after watching this play called 'Accidental Death of an Anarchist'. Although I did mourn the poor fellow's death, I was saddened mostly by the repetitiveness of the issues - politico-bureaucratic callousness, corruption and public apathy - that were and continue to be discussed through popular art that is intended for social enlightenment, awareness and change

The story revolves around the 'accidental' death of a resourceful, sharp and dangerous criminal-type, who is later revealed to be an anarchist (editor of 'Sangharsh' magazine and all!), inside a police station. While the death is never actually enacted and only a jump out of the window is known, the investigation by some justice commission unravels the goings-on in the police department in order to hush the case and prove the death to be anything else but 'murder in custody'. It is not made clear whether the commission is in collusion with the police dept. Ultimately, it is left to this woman from the news media, who gets involved with the investigation, to decide whether to expose this death, the executors and the awkward findings of the case to the population at large. And therein my friends, lies the rub.

As the news media strives, everyday and everyhour to produce some 'stories'- one can see visions of really curious smart men n women who can write a bit, sniffing out good, evil and nonsensical doings of people around- one is forced to wonder on exactly how much of their discretion (or their bosses' discretion) comes into play when these stories are being (or not being) beamed across to millions. Who decides on what and how much to show and tell and in what light? And most importantly, is that decision up for sale?

One argument could be that ultimately, the people (and ratings) decide what is being shown or printed. But are the people really THAT interested in a little boy stuck in a hole somewhere? Or for that matter, the well-being of Abhishek's hair-band?
I don't see any real issues- those of corruption, lack of infrastructure, healthcare and even basic education being tackled out there. Or are they not news enough? Then again, why are they not? What happened to responsible journalism?

As the economy, society and the socio-political hierarchy rumble along, the mass media- on the hunt for instant viewership- is reluctant to employ the great social imminence that it has acquired over the last decade or so in order to create any significant positive social impact. What we have instead are sycophancy, cleavage, fog updates and 'sting' operations (revealing the casting couch, street-policeman bribery and urban five-star hotel prostitution!). Hah, now that's BIG news!

A couple of exceptional cases recently viz. Manu Sharma, Priyadarshini Mattoo and Nitish Katara et al have only begun to highlight the power that the media can generate and possess with public opinion on their side. But this net has to be spread far and wide, and most importantly- at issues and the men (and women) that have put national integrity, pride and assets at stake.

You will agree that all of this does not amount to mere naive and idealistic rambling. I'm quite sure that there's a business model in there. The more people see their issues resolved and their world becoming better, the more they'll tune in to watch or read how it happened. A simple start could be a 'Follow the Budget 07-08' (weekly for an hour) which follows the diktats, monetary grants, execution of Budget plans and related human stories in an involving and stimulating fashion. Real Reality TV, if that makes sense.

My only hope is that as the industry matures and companies are freed from monitoring the bottom-line quarter on quarter, the media would wake up to its potential and even duty; for it is imperative that the media play their role as effective watchdogs and whistle-blowers- and consequently become strong change-agents that can guide this country as it races along to an unknown future.

'Big Four' of Indian Business

Check the Fortune 500 listings, and you will find that the largest companies in the world tend to be in five or six key businesses: energy, automobiles, telecom, IT, banking and retailing.

If you want to know who in India is positioning himself right, check which business group is where and you will get the answers.

Let's start with the sector that is seeing a lot of the action just now - retailing. Mukesh Ambani has opened his account here, and now Sunil Mittal has tied up with Wal-Mart. Tata has a smallish operation in Trent, and reports suggest that the group may be thinking of a bigger play soon. One report also says that Tesco, on the rebound from failed negotiations with Mittal, might tie the knot with Kumar Mangalam Birla. That accounts for the Big Four of Indian business.

Look next at telecom, which has been the big story of recent years, and it should not surprise that the list is no different: Ambani (Anil, this time), Tata, Birla and Mittal.

In energy, it is Ambani (both brothers now) and Tata. In automobiles, the biggest Indian player is Tata. The industrial houses are barred from banking, but the Big Four are active in the financial sector: Tata, Birla and Ambani are all leading players in insurance and mutual funds, while Mittal as the latest arrival at the top has not had the time yet to spread his wings.

In IT, once again, Tata is the biggest. It only underlines the dominance of these four industrial groups (five, if you count the Ambanis separately) when you realise that all these are sunrise sectors that have seen either their private sector birth (or rapid expansion) in the last decade.

Are we looking at a tiny corporate elite capturing the bulk of the business opportunities in an economy that has begun to flower, and should that be a matter of concern? It would certainly seem that way if you look at some of the pointers: four of the seven companies with the biggest market cap belong to these groups, and two of the remaining three are from the public sector!

The Big Four (or Five) account for between a fifth and a sixth of the total value of Indian companies, and about a third of the total wealth owned by India's 400 billionaires (that is without counting Ratan Tata, whose personal holding in his group is nominal).

Between them, they probably also account for more corporate wealth than the combined value of all the companies owned by the government of India.

Having pointed out all this, one would argue that there is no cause for worry. First, all the markets in which these players operate are competitive, and there is no real evidence of collusion or price gouging by exploiting market power.

Second, there is no shortage of fresh entrepreneurial talent that is able to compete and emerge into the sunshine. Sunil Mittal is himself a prime example of this, as he has competed successfully against both Tata and Ambani in telecom, but there are others: Anil Agarwal of Vedanta, Tulsi Tanti of Suzlon, KP Singh of DLF (watch his market cap once he lists), the software icons in Infosys and Wipro, Mahindra, the Dhoot brothers �

Indeed, the whole point of India's billionaires is that the vast majority are first-generation entrepreneurs - people like Kishore Biyani of the Future group, which is into retailing, and Jignesh Shah of the Multi-Commodity Exchange, who has just become India's youngest, first-generation dollar billionaire.

None of this speaks of dominance to a degree that it becomes detrimental to the rest of the system, or harmful to others. In any case, the Indian economy is now more open to the world and so national dominance is not important beyond a point because more and more of the global giants are here: Suzuki in cars, Hutch in phones, IBM in IT, Citi and HSBC in banking. Indeed, the majority of big consumer brands in the country belong to large, international firms. In other words, let the hounds run.

Source: Rediff Guest Column by T N Ninan

Pictures of Lost Cities

Pictures of Lost Cities