An Antakshari To End All Antaksharis

An Antakshari To End All Antaksharis

Antakshari is a typical Indian (I guess) game which almost everyone in India must have played at some time or other in their childhood. This traditional game which must have kept the folk songs alive through centuries received a great boost in past few decades as film music proliferated and provided the players of Antakshari a veritable treasure-trove of songs. This is a game which is a great leveler, anyone and everyone can participate on an equal footing, young ones with the recent trendy hits and the golden oldies with their khazana of old forgotten songs. 

The traditional form of Antakshari used to be like a timeless test which would go on for hours at end and I remember spending an entire train journey on a family trip spread over a few days battling (solo, that too) relentlessly against two very determined ladies who refused to give up. I had to bring out all my resources and managed just about to hang on.

But in these days of ODIs and T20s, the classic format has given way to a few modified versions which take into consideration the time constraint on players and exciting fresh variations. As a result the Antakshari has morphed into a totally different creature, a heady blend between the traditional form and a music quiz. As a result the Antakshari of earlier years which hardly required a referee, now requires a savvy organizer who can design interesting formats and provide the contestants with a far more complex challenge. The audio and video media have added new dimensions to the game and made the game infinitely more interesting. The variations it can take are only restricted by the imagination of the organizers.

So when a maestro like Manohar Iyer arranges an Antakshari, you can be sure that it is going to be a treat for the spectators and test the contestants to their limits. Manohar is a walking encyclopedia of Hindi film music. Throw any song at him and he comes up not only the film from which it is taken but also the lyricist, music director, the year it hit the theatres, the banner under which it was produced, the lead pair on whom it was filmed and quite likely tell you some notable incident which took place during the making of the film. Manohar runs an institution called “Keep Alive” formed and nurtured by him with a religious zeal for past 20 years now, for music is nothing short of a religion to him. 

Keep Alive, as the name suggests, has made it a mission to keep the old Hindi film music alive for the older generation and in the process also introduced the melodies from past to the younger generation. Keep Alive holds regular programs, each one with its unique theme, like songs by a particular singer or a music director or a lyricist or from a particular era in Bollywood filmi sangeet. Given his penchant for bringing out forgotten gems of past, each program of Keep Alive has at least 3-4 songs which very few (read probably no one) in the audience have heard before, googlies and bouncers that are totally unplayable.  

So one can only imagine what to expect when he organizes an Antakshari event and has to approach it with some amount of trepidation.

Look at some of the rounds in the last one he organized.

Round 1 : Geet Gaata Chal:

Normal traditional antakshari round with a twist - the older the song the contestant comes up with, more points he gets e.g songs from films released in:

 1931 - 40 : 30 points

                              1941 - 50 : 25 points

                               1951 – 60 : 20 points

                              1961 – 70 : 15 points

                              1971 onwards : 10 points

Round 2 : SHABD ne Kiya Kya Haseen Sitam :

Contestants to sing a song starting from a word picked at random.

Round 3 :   Hum CHAR Mein Jalnewalon ko Chain Kahaan :

The contestants are to guess a song given four words from the mukhda of a song in random order.

Round 4 : ANGREZI Mein Kahtaa Hoon Ki …..: (Buzzer Round)

The clue is the translation in English of a mukhda of a Hindi song for the contestants to decipher.

Round 5 : DHUN Saybaa DHUN :  (Buzzer Round)

Clue will be prelude music of a song played by artists on instruments – contestants have to guess the song  / mukhda.

Round 6 : Ek SHER Sunataa Hoon Main : (Buzzer Round)

Many songs are preceded by a couplet; contestants need to identify the song from this clue.

Round 7 : Hum Bane Tum Bane EK DOOJE KE LIYE :

The clue will be a star – pair and the contestants will have to sing a song from any of the films starring this pair.

Round 8 : CHHUPNEWALE SAMNE AA :

Mukhda of a song will be played for the contestants to identify names of films hidden in the mukhda.

                   

So you get the idea. No freebies here. The contestants have to really know their stuff if they have to get anywhere. Add to that the negative points to wrong answers on buzzer rounds and the teams can very well end up in negative territory (as did my team – in not one but two Finals). Manohar is also a strong believer in Prevention of MRTP Act (Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices) and tries to ensure a level field by insisting that the contestants are cast in teams of 3 members picked at random, so that the teams may be balanced to the extent possible.

He is organizing one this week for Girija Sharma Memorial Foundation on 26^th January at Mira Road.  Those interested in attending or participating, please contact sharmasheelkumar@yahoo.com or whatsapp 88981 79325 or 88981 75768. Some small admission fee shall be charged to cover refreshments to be served for all those attending. As a finalist in last two editions I would surely have loved to attend but alas I am about 13,500 kms away as the crow flies. (Given the distance I guess only crows from Krypton are likely to manage that!)

All Hindi film music lovers are welcome to participate or at least be a part of audience to savour the proceedings. Be warned that knowing Manohar, he will make a few changes to the format to make it more interesting. 100% Enjoyment guaranteed.   

 LazyBee

23^rd January 2017.

  

And The Darwin Award Goes To.....

And The Darwin Award Goes To.....

Charles Robert Darwin is known for his contribution to various fields such as geology, biology, biogeography, invertebrate zoology, and of course for his theory of natural selection which has made him a household name like Sir Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein.

His voyage on HMS Beagle which lasted for five long years (1831-1836) and took him around the world gave him insights for his famous book On Origin of Species. His work also won him the honour of having 120 species named after him (probably the most that any single scientist has) and a whole city, Darwin, the capital of Northern Territories in Australia, after him.  So if there is an award named after him one would expect that the award celebrates the one central point of his theory, “the survival of the fittest”.

Ironically, the criterion for the Darwin Award is stated as  "In the spirit of Charles Darwin, the Darwin Awards commemorate individuals who protect our gene pool by making the ultimate sacrifice of their own lives. Darwin Award winners eliminate themselves in an extraordinarily idiotic manner, thereby improving our species' chances of long term survival”. Well, in a way, it does fit the Darwinian hypothesis that only the fittest survive and thereby pass on their genes to the next generation, if only in a slightly oblique manner.

In keeping with the criterion laid down, the awards are given (mostly) posthumously and the requirements are also very clearly spelt out:

1.       Inability to reproduce: The nominee must be dead or rendered sterile by his actions so that he does not leave descendants (at least subsequent to the event). With current advances in science, this might become tougher in future as a survivor could possibly pass on his genes through IVF, cloning or some other technology, so Darwin awards use a test called “desert island” test which looks at whether or not the nominee would be able to reproduce if left alone on a desert island with a fertile specimen of opposite sex. I guess that settles it rather neatly.

2.       Excellence: The chosen method of self annihilation should be foolish, unique and sensational; common cause of accidental death like smoking in bed does not qualify, foolish it may be, but unfortunately not unique.

3.       Self-selection:  The cause of death should be chosen voluntarily by the person himself or herself. Accidental death due to someone else’s folly will not get you a nomination mind you.

4.       Maturity: The candidate must be above the legal age to get a driver’s license i.e. at least on paper be mature to make his / her own decisions. A mentally unstable person is also not eligible for the award.

5.       Veracity: The incident must be verified. A large number of historical incidents are therefore out of purview of the awards as they have not been adequately verified.  

There are a few provisos which make a deceased ineligible for a nomination. For example if the act of self-destruction also happens to kill a healthy by-stander who would otherwise have been able to reproduce, such acts are frowned upon and the deceased will lose his claim to a Darwin.

The awards website www.darwinawards.com is full of details of how creative people can be to (unwittingly) qualify for nominations or awards. A look at a few of the nomination winning feats will hopefully teach us what not to do to earn a nomination to a Darwin.    

 Top Gun?: In Illinois, a police officer accidentally shot himself to death. A colleague of his, a veteran with 20 years of experience was re-enacting the scenario for the benefit of other colleagues.  And guess what? He forgot to empty his service revolver before he set out to do the re-enactment and promptly shot himself in stomach. He died on his way to the hospital thus qualifying for a nomination to a  Darwin on his own.

Horseshoe for Goodluck? : Robert, a daredevil stuntman rigged up a homemade rocket-parachute contraption and sped on a jet ski over Horseshoe Falls at full throttle. His plan was very simple, fire the rocket as he went over the falls which would take him clear of the water, then pop open the parachute and gently float down to the river below where he would be picked up by the Maid o' the Mist tour boat. But Robert had not reckoned with the effect that excess humidity would have on his equipment. The rocket didn’t fire and the parachute failed to deploy; the only part of his plan which worked to perfection was the pick-up by Maid o’the Mist. The snag was he was quite dead by the time he was pulled out of the water. Robert was married but had no children, making him a perfect Darwin contender.

Trick or Treat? : A college student wanted to show up as Dracula for Halloween. To add a realistic touch, he put a pine board down the front of his shirt so he could "realistically" sink a knife into the board and pretend he was transfixed by a vampire-killing stake. He either overestimated the strength of the thin pine board or under-estimated the sharpness of the knife. He tried to hammer the knife in the board. So far so good, but the stroke of hammer caused the sharp blade to split the soft wood and bury itself in his heart. He staggered from his dorm room into the Halloween party. His friends carried him to the hospital where the medics treated him but that didn’t do any trick. He received a posthumous nomination for a Darwin. I don’t know if Count Dracula can count this the deceased among one of his many victims.

Tongue-Tied Teenager ?: Snakes have this peculiar habit of flicking their tongues out periodically which is actually their way of smelling. The snake’s tongue draws in a sample of air which would contain some of molecules of scent given off by a prey. This scent tells the snake where to find its next meal. One doesn’t know whether this particular teenager knew this for a fact or not but when he found a rattlesnake flicking its tongue at him, he (the teenager) took umbrage and wanted to get back. He picked up the rattlesnake by the scruff of its neck held him in front of his face and stuck out his tongue. It is not reliably known if this particular rattlesnake was totally rattled or if it is considered rude in accepted rattlesnake social etiquettes to stick one’s tongue out to an elderly rattlesnake, but the outcome was that this said rattlesnake bit the said teenager’s tongue. The results as far as the two parties engaged in this time-honoured kindergarten game of “ if-you-stick-your-tongue-out-at-me-I-will-stick-mine-out-you” were radically different. The said teenager dropped the said rattlesnake in a hurry and the rattlesnake which had had enough of this silly game anyway rattled away in even greater hurry.  The said teenager, however, found that his tongue which had been the recipient of a close encounter with rattlesnake had swollen to enormous proportions and which in due course of couple of minutes choked his windpipe and immediately put him high on the list of most promising nominees for a Darwin.

Big Bang Practicals 101: High among the high treason acts in history of the world is the Guy Fawkes plot to blow up the British Parliament along with King James I, in 1605. The plotters wanted to overthrow the protestant rule and ring in a catholic reign. Guy Fawkes, who was one of the 7 main plotters was caught with a pile of gunpowder right in the basement of Westminster. A few of his fellow conspirators escaped and were tracked down to an inn where they decided to make their last stand. They had a large cache of gunpowder with them and were hopeful of making a last ditch stand worthy of their religious zeal. Unfortunately the gunpowder was wet and needed to be dried properly. The masterminds laid down the pile near a fireplace so that the heat from fireplace would help them dry the powder a tad faster (remember they were shortly to be under fire from King’s men). They didn’t take into consideration the fact that fireplaces do sometimes splutter and throw up embers which essentially tend to follow some trajectory of their own. One such ember found a resting place on the top of the pile of gunpowder. That was the end of the last stand the plotters were planning to make. Unfortunately since Charles Darwin was born a couple of centuries after this incident, this event did not receive a citation for a Darwin but an honourable mention it surely deserves.       

LazyBee

8^th January 2017

NaMo And DeMo

NaMo And DeMo

Just back from IIT B campus where we had a very stimulating lecture by  Dr Kaushik Basu (former Chief Economist of  the World Bank and also former Economic Advisor to Government of India).  The topic was deliberately and most appropriately chosen as “The Economics of Corruption, Black Money, and Demonetization”.

Dr Basu was delivering the 3^rd Prof N R Kamath Chair Colloquium Lecture which is an annual event.  Prof N R Kamath was a well known Chemical Engineer and I was wondering what an economist had to do with chemical engineering. But I realized on second thoughts that what an economist does for a living, not unlike a chemical engineer, is just trying to put some of his recipes into practice. While a chemical engineer can manipulate the pressure, temperature, concentrations of various chemicals and pH of the solutions, an economist has variables like money supply, interest rates, exchange rates and other equally obtuse parameters to play with. But while a chemical engineer may quickly be able to ascertain the results of his “experiment” an economist can safely keep on arguing about correctness of his solution vis-a-vi s other solutions by other economists till the doomsday. 

This does not purport to be a report or a critique of Dr. Basu’s lecture but just an attempt to put down on paper what I gathered from an extremely balanced discourse about the topics under discussion. I am sure a lot of the points he made must have been made by different people over the past one month but they are worth mentioning here to present a coherent view of the subject.  The basic ideas are Dr Basu’s but failure to convey them clearly will be entirely mine.

Ø  Black money is just a small part of “black wealth” in the sense that whatever black money gets generated does not stay as “black money” which is the unaccounted cash held. A large part of the black money generated has got converted into assets both in India and abroad.

Ø  Black money and white money are sort of interchangeable in character and what is once “black” may mutate into “white” once it undergoes some monetary transactions and vice a versa.

Ø  Some economists do not consider black money as bad as it also spurs consumption.

Ø  He does not agree with those economists and considers that black money damages the moral fabric of the society and should not be encouraged. 

Ø  He did not fault the intention behind demonetization but felt that that step itself was not a proper one.  

Ø  He enumerated some  plausible reasons which have apparently led to demonetization

·         Removal of  Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN)

·         Eradication of Black Money

·         Encouraging digital transactions

Each of these, he felt, had a very limited relevance.

Ø  Quantum of FICN was fairly small and anyway confiscating the fake currency would only penalize the current holder of the currency and not the actual perpetrators. The FICN printers would soon start printing the new currency. The solution would be to keep on upgrading the security features all the time making it more difficult for the forgers to duplicate. As per him this problem existed with every country including the US.

Ø  The estimates of black money vary from 20% to 25% of GDP (considering the GDP of India at US $ 1.877 trillion -  2013 figure and an exchange rate of INR 68 to a US $, the black money component of economy works between 3.7 to 4.6 lakh crores in 2013 rupees.  This is what has given rise to the expectations of how much currency may get extinguished. Calculations all mine). Black money can not be weeded out by such measures and even now new ways are being devised to circumvent the restrictions and convert “old” black money into “new” black money. Some amount of black money may get eradicated but considering more than 11 lakh crores of demonetized currency has already been returned, there is a good chance that currency not returned to RBI may be a very small fraction of 14.8 lakh crores of high denomination notes that lost their “legal tender status on 8^th November 2016.

Ø  As for the digital transactions, 98% of transactions in India are cash transactions. Even US and UK have close to half the transactions in cash so India leapfrogging to a cashless society is virtually an impossibility.

Ø  More serious, he felt, was the systemic shock the demonetization had given to the economy. He expected that the growth in GDP which was earlier estimated at 7.6% would fall down to maybe 6.8% -6.9% in this year and far worse in 2017-18.

Ø  Dr Basu observed that the economic systems (markets) had their own internal logic and it was difficult to predict their behaviour in case they were shifted radically from their existing (equilibrium) positions. He recounted the experience in Brazil where the current political upheaval due to corruption charges against top political leaders has pushed the markets into a negative growth rate of 3.8% (a contraction of economy or a deflation). India too had experienced a contraction in 1979-80 immediately after the last demonetization. He clarified that this does not necessarily mean that this current demonetization would lead to similar scenario as a lot of factors could be different this time. However he did not rule it out saying that it was not possible for anyone to predict accurately how the entire economic system would behave.   

Ø  He had one suggestion which he felt would reduce the pain and that is to partially roll back the demonetization process by retaining the “legal tender status” of Rs 500 notes.  (A suggestion which I felt would certainly negate the entire exercise and have a strong negative impact politically). He cited examples of S Korean President who would not hesitate to undo earlier directives if they were seen to be not working.  

Ø  During the lecture Dr Basu touched upon a lot of ideas from other disciplines which showed how economics has evolved over the years. Behavioral psychology, game theory and even biology have shaped economics over the recent past and should continue to add more tools in the economists tool-kit.

Ø  Dr Basu made a case for fighting corruption starting from top and by meting out stronger punishment to those in government who cause “corruption by harassment” which is quite often found where common people are forced to give bribes even after complying  with all the rules and regulations. He cited issuing of licenses or clearing export  / import consignments as the cases in point.

Ø  But he felt that societies as a whole could change and he gave examples of societies self regulating themselves by strongly objecting to corruption by their members for example trade association etc.  He cited a number of examples from the newly formulated “laboratory experiments” in economics where an individual willingly adapts himself to the norms acceptable to the group he is operating in, in spite of having different natural tendencies e.g. the corrupt peer group influencing the individual to be corrupt or vice a versa.

Ø  Even nations have transformed themselves over a few decades; for examples Sweden which was a notoriously corrupt country in 19^th century now scores very high on the “clean” list. Similarly the Japanese who were habitually lax people are now extremely punctual.  

The lecture was followed by Q&A session which brought out Dr Basu’s thinking on various points which was underlined by his candid admission a few times that he did not know much to offer his opinion. 

The observation about peer group should immediately strike a chord in all of us who have often wondered how differently we tend to behave when we are overseas. We seem to have no issues about forming orderly queues and following traffic rules like maintaining lane discipline and no honking when we are in US or UK and the same us will happily elbow our way to the top of the Immigration queue the moment we land here.

But the last observation about possibility of changing character of large groups of people, even nations, makes me hopeful that someday India may be reasonably free of petty corruption. A heart-warming thought but we must make a start somewhere. NaMo has made a start with his DeMo. And although it’s looking increasingly likely that the move may not get India nowhere close to where it was intended to, let us persevere and work out the best we can in the next couple of years which are going to be tough. At the same time we must pray that the ruling party also learns its lessons and does not try to over-correct the course by going in for stricter measures to achieve what it meant to achieve or by creating some diversionary “red herrings” because it is sure to antagonize the electorate so much that NaMo and party get DeMoted to Opposition benches again. We all should know what that would mean for India.

LazyBee

10^th December 2016

Cyrus The-Not-So-Great?

Cyrus The-Not-So-Great?

It’s quite tough to comment on something which is making so much commotion in the media that it becomes difficult to differentiate between meaningful information and pure background noise.  Take the mysterious case of aapro Cyrus and the Bombay House.  A case where everyone has strong opinion one way or the other  eg our cook who uses only Tata Salt, our gardener who swears by Tata Chemicals fertilizers and the corner tea-stall owner who is worried about the future of Tata Tea, all feel that Tatas can never be wrong.  On the other hand, my neighbor who was planning to buy a Nano for Diwali has decided that Tata or no, he would rather opt for a Maruti.  Luckily my friends are a pragmatic lot and can switch over to ITC or East India Hotels if they find there is some issue with Indian Hotels.

Normally the fights in Parsi community are restricted to Bombay Parsi Punchayet and Jam-e-Jamshed and involve heavy debates and editorials about weighty issues such as “how to define a poor Parsi?” or “whether the re-development plan of Cusrow Baug  should offer 3 BHK flats or 5BHK penthouses?” BTW, a couple of years ago, if I recollect correctly, a poor Parsi household was defined (by Parsi Punchayet) as one having a monthly income of less than Rs 90,000! So next time you invite a poor Parsi friend over for a dinner, please make sure that you have enough parking space for his 1920’s Silver Ghost. Poor chap hasn't had a chance to upgrade to a Nano!  Here I must state that an overwhelmingly high fraction of Parsis I have known are jolly good fellows and some of the gentlest of gentlemen and that’s why this ongoing tussle is all the more puzzling. Parsis as a rule are not parsimonious but I guess there is lots and lots of Parsi money involved in this case and that’s what makes the difference.

Normally while analyzing any topic a 360^o  examination is sufficient to show up all the relevant factors and facilitate formation of a reasonable opinion; but even after a 4Л steRADIAians inspection by the knowledgeable industry insiders, this topic is still just as clear as a Delhi morning on a typical December day and is getting murkier by the day. So having exhausted the 2D and 3D perspectives, LazyBee decided to take a look in the 4^th dimension to see if history can throw some pointers for the present.

Cyrus the Great was a legendary king of Persia in the sixth century BC. (Yes, some other countries do have well-maintained records deeper in antiquity even surpassing ours). It will be interesting to try and find some parallels between him and the Cyrus in limelight - and some divergences as well.  

Cyrus II of Persia was the son of Cambyses I who was a vassal to the King of Media. The King of Media was also Cyrus’s grand-father.  Cyrus was made the king by his father a good eight years before his own death. Cyrus first took over the Median empire (through a battle spread over 3 years) and then proceeded to build the largest empire known to mankind till that date by conquering the Lydian and the Neo-Babylonian Empires. His kingdom, the Achaemenid Empire, extended from Balkans in east to Indus Valley in the west.  He was also an able administrator and made special efforts to integrate the new territories he had won over into his empire. He was since then called Cyrus The Great.

There are some parallels and some divergences in these two cases.

Look at the parallels : Our  Cyrus is also a prince in his own right. Shapoorji Pallonji’s holdings in Tata group companies alone have been put at Rs 81,000 crores (that is around US $ 12 billion, give and take a few millions).  Pallonjis are also the single largest private individual share-holders of Tata Sons, the majority of the rest being largely held by trusts.

In case of Cyrus the Great, his father Cambyses I was very much alive for the first 8 years of his reign just like Ratan Tata being very much there to oversee our Cyrus take over the reins of his empire.

Now the divergences : While Cyrus the Great had to take over the Median Empire by military power, our Cyrus was selected and invited to become the Chairman of the Tata Empire. His battles seem to have started after he was anointed the Emperor.  Our Cyrus has had to contend with an active past emperor who was not content with advising the new emperor from the side-lines but actively plotted to dethrone the emperor at his whim and fancy.   

The biggest difference in the two situations is that Cyrus the Great expanded his empire by adding on territories but our Cyrus wanted to consolidate his empire by knocking off a few “territories” which he found to be too much of a drain on royal treasury. The emperors of old could finance their wars by a number of ways; levying additional taxes on their populace or striking new coins or debasing their currencies. One doesn’t know how Cyrus the Great managed it but he seems to have managed it quite well. Our Cyrus didn’t have these options and hence had decided to downsize (or rightsize) his empire. The old emperor, who during his reign had kept on adding new territories whatever be the cost of acquisition, found this difficult to digest. Nay, he found it downright ungrateful of our Cyrus that he (Cyrus) could even contemplate going against his diktats and start selling the family heirlooms.

The drama which is unfolding has a surreal familiarity about it. Once the palace coup gets executed, no efforts are spared to malign the deposed emperor, all the deposed emperor’s men are (ex)terminated. All sorts of charges are levelled to paint the deposed emperor as incompetent. (It also helps that in most cases the deposed emperors were conveniently disposed off to avoid any future comebacks).  In the days to come as old emperor tries to consolidate his hold on the empire more “inside stories” will find their way to the media, of which there will be no authentication or confirmation but each will add to the weight of “evidence” against the deposed emperor.  In the meanwhile all old blunders will get swept under the royal carpet waiting for the next economic upturn which will then be used to confirm the “rightness” of decisions taken earlier. It is another thing that the world has changed inexorably over the past decade and acche din may never dawn again, certainly not for everyone.

According to some scholars the word Cyrus means “annihilator of enemies in verbal contest”. If our Cyrus runs true to his name, Tata Sons have a long fight ahead of them and the media can look forward to periodic spikes in TRP as both sides take potshots at each other.

The ultimate question, a US $ 108 billion one at that, which seems to be on everyone’s mind : “Is our Cyrus,  Cyrus The Not-So-Great or is he Cyrus The Ingrate?”  Only one person knows the correct answer to that question and he is not telling. Perhaps it is time for Ms Radia to call him!!!

LazyBee

25^th Nov 2016

LeaveMeansLeave

LeaveMeansLeave

Somehow decisions taken around the time of Summer Solstices often have a disastrous ending. Hitler launched Operation Barbarosa on 22^nd June 1941 to invade Russia expecting to run through and register an easy victory like the Nazi war machine had achieved in Western Europe. The result of that decision is recorded in all the history books. Seventy five years later almost to the date, on 23^rd June 2016 Britain decided upon Brexit to move out of EU and chart a course on its own. The results of this decision will take a few years to materialize but let there be no doubts which way the ball is set to roll.   

Britain’s relations with EU had always been more than a bit strange. Britain has been  more like a flirtatious young person who wanted to get as much out of the relationship without really committing fully to it and always keeping the other party guessing whether the relationship was ever going to be consummated.

It is interesting to see the history of relationship between Britain and EU (or European Economic Community - EEC which was the pre-cursor to EU). The Common Market was formed in 1957 but Britain and a few European nations like Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Portugal and Switzerland declined to join and established European Free Trade Association (EFTA) in 1960. But as luck would have it, by early 1960’s the Common Market countries showed signs of significantly better growth than the EFTA and the British, true to their philosophy decided to join EEC since they couldn’t beat it.  By the way, EFTA still exists with Norway and Switzerland as the main partners.

The entry of Britain into EC was not without its drama and Charles De Gaulle twice vetoed its entry delaying its admission till 1973. The British sojourn in EU since 1973 has been far from smooth fraught as it was with controversies; chocolate war and beef war to get these products accepted into EU and of course the ever present   tension between UK and rest of EU about contribution of UK towards the common overheads. 

Popular wisdom prior to the Brexit poll was that the easy access to the largest market in the world would ensure that Britain stays in the EU but the “Leave” faction won over the referendum  with thinnest of margins in spite of heavy-weights like the US President Barack Obama throwing in their weight behind the “Stay”s.   Proponents of Stay have pointed out that Britain stands to lose 10 billion pounds annually and approx. 70,000 jobs in the financial sector alone which will migrate to Europe. The total jobs at stake which cater to exports to EU are estimated to be 3 million. No wonder the “Stay”s  have been assessing and exploring every possibility of going back on the verdict of the referendum and save the country.

Alarmed that there could be a chance of a rethink, the “Leave” faction has stepped up their efforts and formed a campaign “LeaveMeansLeave”  (no jokes). The foremost aim of LML is to stall any rethink and ensure that Brexit is achieved as per their desire. LML has shown that as far as projections are concerned, two can play the game. They have come up with their own claims that Brexit will save Britain 14 billion pounds per annum and that actually Britain can benefit much more by becoming a conduit to EU for non-European countries blah blah blah. The new look British government under Theresa May feels that they will be able to extract much better trade deals with EU and other bilateral deals once they are out of EU. But they have perhaps not contended with the Franco-German alliance and the Brussels bureaucracy which is not likely to make the British dreams any easier to materialize.  To be sure the loss of jobs in EU too will be substantially more than a million and this is not something which the EU can easily adjust to especially in the global downturn such as the present one.  If ever there was a lose-lose situation this is it.

British have long been past masters of the game of “divide-and-rule” and if we have to believe Sir Humphrey Appleby,  the modern day avatar of Machiavelli, it has been the official policy of the British Foreign Office for over 500 years.  In one insightful passage in Yes Minister, Sir Humphrey  explains the reason why Britain has decided to join the EU and how by joining it Britain would ensure that EU will never be successful leading to break-up of EU sooner than later.   

Looks that for once this British strategy of divide-and-rule has not worked all that well.  In spite of heavy odds and all too obvious differences in cultures and mindsets (as Sir Humphrey puts it “EU has the organizing ability of the Italians, flexibility of the Germans and modesty of the French”), the EU has still managed to hobble along. So UK is now going to exit EU and try to break it from outside.  Suicidal it may appear to you and me and to Barack Obama but LML is firmly convinced that it is on the right track and is fervently committed to life after Brexit.

Enthused by this bold new approach of LML to self-destruct, the Taliban, Al Qaida, ISIS and other jihadist groups have come together to form an elite group of volunteers called SuicideMeansSuicide (SMS). SMS is confident that if half the Britain can find it attractive to follow LML on the basis of some flimsy promises, they should have no problems recruiting a sizeable number of volunteers into their suicide squads since they offer not just a short term, temporary benefit but one which will last till the day of quayamat.   

LazyBee

5^th  November 2016

Readers who want to enjoy Sir Humphrey Appleby’s devious take on EU may please click on;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkpS-yBj7gY ,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvYuoWyk8iU , 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVYqB0uTKlE

Who Moved My LoC?

Who Moved My LoC?

2.07 AM  - The General stirred in his sleep.  The recurring dream which he had been having almost every night for ages was coming to its now predictable usual end.  He was standing in the Lal Chowk in Srinagar and there were cheering crowds all around him shouting his name and hailing him as ‘The Liberator’. Soon there would  be a celebratory volley of shots from the AK47s and tracer bullets lighting the darkening sky above.  He, The General, had succeeded where the mighty generals and prime ministers of past had failed, Ayub, Yahya, Zia, Musharraf and even those upstarts Bhuttos – Zulfikar and Benazir. The glory would be his and his alone for having liberated Kashmir. From here Islamabad would be just a step away. Kashmir, Kashmiris and fidayeens who were around him at the moment would have to take care of themselves and each other. He would hardly be concerned  to what happened to these uncouth ruffians afterwards. True, they had their uses.  He would now be The Chief. That nincompoop of an incumbent had to go; maybe exiled to London like that wily old fox Mushy or better still far far away and rather permanently like those Bhuttos.  

But instead of the volley of shots which he had experienced everyday in his dream, the sound which penetrated The General’s ears was more like a telephone bell and one which continued to ring brazenly even after the General lifted the receiver and slammed it back vehemently.   Finally the General realized that the caller on the other side was not about to give up. He looked at his watch 2.09 AM. He did a rapid calculation; US was still on the daylight saving; it must be 4.09 PM in DC. About time for the Senate Committee to have gone through the day’s agenda.  It must be his mole in the entourage of US Secretary of State calling him. Maybe there was some news about a few more billions that those Americans had agreed to cough up to bolster his fight against the jihadis. The General chuckled. He had frankly lost count of the number of times he had managed to pull wool over the eyes of those gullible Yankees. 

It had become a routine now. Talk about new threats from Al Qaeda, report a couple of attacks from the Haquaanis, stage an ambush or two  in Afganistan by the Taliban and a few more billions were bound to come rolling in.   “Who was that Russian chap who predicted all that? Oh yes, Pavlov” mused the General.  Well, the things were getting a bit rough especially after The Sheik was ambushed in his  hiding place in Abbottabad right next to the Army base. It had taken a lot of ingenious explanations  by everyone to convince the Americans that they were innocent. Thank Allah it was managed somehow. True their funding had come down to a trickle but even a trickle can do wonders if it is a trickle from the US war chest.

Of course, these funds would be made good use of; some would no doubt find their way for the ‘non-state actors’ who had such an important role to play in the games generals play but a big chunk would go to The Coterie which controlled these ‘non-state actors’, The Coterie of which he was the ex-officio President. ‘Non-state actors’, The General couldn’t help a smile at the thought, whosoever had coined that term was a pure genius; in US of A, NSA stood for National Security Agency , ha!  “This is our NSA” mused The General.  

All these thoughts flitted through his mind as he picked up the receiver.

The General : “Yes?”

Voice over the Phone : “Assalam-alekum General. This is Major Altaf from the War-Room”

TG :  “Waleikum –assalam. Major Altaf this better be important.”

Altaf : “Sir, we can’t find the LoC.”

TG : “Major, if you can’t hold your liquor you shouldn’t be drinking and definitely not be on duty in the War Room” barked TG. “You are relieved of your duties as of this moment and report to the Peshawar HQ by tomorrow evening.”

Altaf : “Sir, I am not drunk and am very serious. The LoC has vanished.  A few minutes ago suddenly the LoC vanished from the large Situation Map in the War Room which we monitor day and night.”

TG : “ Kya bakte ho!” TG was a great fan of Bollywood and would unconsciously lapse into filmy dialogues when under duress.  Our readers would recognize this particular line made famous by K N Singh. TG was under a strong impression that he resembled the actor in his saturnine looks, grim demeanour and a gruff voice to match.  He was not far wrong.

Altaf : “Yes Sir. The LoC has vanished from all the maps that we have with us.”

This woke up TG right and proper. He immediately went to the map on the wall of his Drawing Room and there it was staring at him. The map was there but sans the LoC. Till the time he went to bed LoC had been marked boldly on the map clearly showing all the border posts and the “other” locations which pin-pointed what he liked to call the ‘Green Rooms’. The Green Rooms were the makeshift camps from  where the non-state actors got ready to effect their entry on the world stage.  Now the border posts could still be seen on the map but the LoC had vanished and so also had a few of those Green Rooms near khairati Bagh and Dudhnial opposite  the Poonch and Kupwara sectors.

*

2.23 AM : The War Room of the Pakistani Armed Forces is located in the Nuclear Command Authority deep inside the Joint Chief of Staff HQ in the Rawalpindi Military District. As the General was being driven over there, his thoughts were in a turmoil. Disappearances by themselves were not something which bothered him. Journalists who got too snoopy or those foolish liberals who wanted a diminished  role for the mullahs or those cowardly pacifists who wanted peace with their neighbours  or even those disgruntled dissidents  who wanted  to cede from Pakistan, often disappeared without a trace in his awam. There would be some hue and cry, some enquiries from UN Human Resources Commission but eventually The Coterie would prevail and things would settle down. It was even easier to make inanimate things disappear, guns and ammo, rocket launchers and bazookas, even heavy artillery which they had received from US to fight the Al Qaida and the Taliban in Afganistan would disappear  routinely. No doubt all of those “vanishing assets” had duly “re-appeared” on the eastern border as props for his favourite  non-state actors. But in all these disappearances, it was his magic wand which made things happen. This missing LoC business was too bizarre. The General was totally flummoxed and he didn’t like people playing tricks on him.

The situation in the War Room was predictably grim, everyone there seemed to be crowding around the large map on the wall, some with magnifying glasses trying to locate the missing LoC. A murmur went around announcing his arrival in the room and the room fell absolutely silent.

“Good Morning, sir” it was Major Altaf.

“Tell me what exactly happened” The General was curt.

“Sir, at 2.01 AM, the red LEDs showing LoC started blinking rapidly and within a few seconds the entire LoC just vanished. We first thought it was an electrical fault but found no such issues.”

“How can it happen? Iss mapka chappa chappa chhan maro”  roared The General. This was a throwback to Ajit the Lion. ‘”Get the latest satellite images, go over every square foot of imagery. I want that LoC located.  And located right now. Call up border posts and check with them”

Next few minutes there was a hectic activity as the War Room staff went through this very unusual situation of trying to locate the LoC while The General paced the room. 

*

2.41 AM : Suddenly a telephone rang. One of the staff picked up the phone, listened to the caller on the other end and handed the phone to The General “Sir, Border posts commander for you”.

TG : “Yes, Brigadier Masood. Have you discovered where the LoC is?”

“No Sir, but I have discovered what may have happened to LoC. There has been a large strike by the para-commandos of the enemy and a number of our Green Rooms have been totally wiped off. There is a heavy firing from across the border on all our posts and it is bloody pin-point accurate.” As The General stood there wondering what had hit him there came a scream of howitzer shell landing near the outpost where Brigadier Masood must have been and the line went completely dead. 

There was a dazed silence all around. Those crazy bastards had actually crossed over and hit them, a  possibility that the military strategists advising The General had outright pooh – poohed a countless number of times. “Our assessment is that the Indian forces do not have the gumption to cross the LoC at any point in near future, not when we have our nuclear war-heads ready for launch at a moment’s notice” were the exact words in the last Strategy Report which was on The General’s table.  Well now that notice had been well and truly served and the moment had actually arrived.  

The crack team manning the Situation Room had played out this scenario in every War Game they had engaged in. A message flashing on the big screen that Indian fighter planes had breached the air-space and the command issued by The General (No! The Prime Minister was not to be brought in the picture at that point of time for the fear of political dithering and procrastination) to activate the nuclear codes and then the ultimate punching of the string of codes by The General himself or his next in command or the officer-in-charge of the Situation Room, which would send the Hatf- IV and Shaheen  rockets armed with nuclear war-heads streaking across the sky eastwards to fulfill the dreams of generations of Pakistani Generals and Prime Ministers.

On this morning of 29^th September 2016 at Rawalpindi, the digital clock on the wall read

0246 Islamabad / 0546 Beijing / 1646 Washington DC / 2046 London GMT / 0216 New Delhi.

The Situation Room was but a surreal tableau as everyone present there waited with a bated breath trying to record in their minds the moment when history was being made. All eyes were on The General.  

The General stood there with his eyes fixed on the panel of buttons which he and he alone could activate. But he was also the only one in the War Room who knew the real score; how many of those missile heads were real and how many were dummies elaborately created to inflate the number of war-heads which the outside world would credit his country with, the elaborate efforts made to “leak” information to the US, Indian and Israeli intelligence agencies to “establish” the strength of Pakistan’s arsenal, the brazen posturing in every international forum  for creating this image of invincibility and nonchalant preparedness for any eventuality. 

No. He couldn’t throw away everything. This had always been a game of bluff and double-bluff. Indians had called his bluff but he was sure they would be prepared for any eventuality. He had studied the reports streaming in after the Uri attack and he was sure the two weeks had given his counterparts across the border enough time to think through the possible outcomes of their action. He was in a fix now. Doomed either way, damned forever if he chose to press the button or be labelled as the man who shrank from exercising his duty if he abstained from doing it.

Then it hit him. Brilliant. He had an escape route. He would deny that there had ever been a strike by India this side of LoC.  The strategy which The Coterie had used with much success in all the terror attacks ; just deny and go on denying that such a thing had ever happened. Not much of a chance that India would go public with their brazen act of crossing the LoC. That’s it. As simple as that.

He became aware of the Staff awaiting his next move. He turned to Major Altaf and told him.

“Carry on Major. Our job is to first locate the missing LoC. As for the report from Brigadier Masood, everyone here must understand that one should not believe in all reports coming from border from men under extreme duress. We will  cross-check with ISI and we will issue a statement in the morning. Any leaks otherwise and all of you can get ready for being court-martialled. ” 

The General walked out of the War Room.

*  

 Right at that very moment , The Missing LoC was smiling contentedly to itself as it settled into its new location. For a long time it had wanted a change of scenery, tortuously laid as it had always been across hills and valleys of Kashmir. Well, Kashmir was fabulous for the romantics, the nature lovers and the honeymooners but as far as LoCs are concerned it was not all that great. Having to endure annual bouts of heavy snow was one thing, difficult but still manageable, however that constant deafening noise of gun-fire across its body and no end of people trampling it at their own whim and fancy was not to The LoC’s liking. 

Basically LoC’s are peace-loving animals. That’s why they are born, to keep peace and that’s the way they want to continue their existence. Best case scenario for any LoC is to wait for the day the two warring parties decide to call a truce and promote the LoC to an international border. But that was now past. Next few days at least it could lie dormant, undetected and unmolested.  

Let The General and his team search high and low for it in Kashmir and around the international border, not unless they looked closely at the Sind - Punjab -  Balochistan borders would they have any chance of locating The LoC. Till then The LoC could take a well-deserved breather. “But for how long?” The LoC wondered.

 

LazyBee

21^st October 2016

Joint Entrance Test

Joint Entrance Test 

 Once upon a time there was a quiz question "what happens if Pakistan has 

 institutes equivalent to our IITs?" The answer was .....  those institutes would than 

be called "Pakistan Institute of Technology"s or PITs for short.  

Looks Pakistan has taken the first step towards achieving this goal. A friend of mine had 

sent me an interesting mail. As usual I have not been able to resist the temptation of 

tampering with what he forwarded to me, but I hope the concoction is tastier.

The following is the Question Paper for the Joint Entrance Test (JET) to PITs to be held

on  the 1st of April 2017, followed by Communal Re-orientation Appraisal in Science & 

Humanities  (CRASH). All those who survive JET - CRASH will be absorbed into what 

is known as CRAP (Composite Research & Analytical Program) of PITs. 

JET - PITs

Instructions

i) Students found copying will be shot on the spot.

ii) Any student coming late after 10 minutes after the examination starts will be forced 

to join Al Qaida Group.

iii) AK47s and grenades are not allowed in the exam hall.

iv) Students may keep their daggers, revolvers and pack of anthrax bombs only for 

self-defence.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Time: 3 hours                                    Math Exam                                Full Marks: 100

   All questions are compulsory.

1. Abdul was sent to jail for murder. He has 4 wives & 28 children in his house. 

Before going    to jail, Abdul distributed all the money he had to his wives in such a 

proportion that the youngest and most recent wife receives maximum and oldest 

wife gets minimum and each wife gets double of her immediate former competitor. 

Abdul distributed Rupaye 1700 that day. 

            Abdul's oldest wife needs at least Rupaye 25 per month. Find out the time when

            Abdul will have to break out of jail to come out and earn money so that his wives 

do not starve.

As an alternative, you can also design a plan of action which Abdul can initiate from 

within the jail and continue earning so that he need not break out of the jail. 

(Note : Abdul is not a political leader of the ruling party or  member of the local 

mafia which would have enabled him to live happily in the jail with some higher 

authority taking care of his family. Nor is he likely to get bail for coming out and 

carrying out his activities). 

2. Karim is a drug seller. Prices per gram of marijuana, hasish, heroin and  LSD  

    are Rupaye 50, 60, 70, and 80 respectively. Karim offers a discount of Rupaye 5,

   10, 15 and 20 per gram to his buyers who buy more than 50 grams of any single 

   drug. If Rahim, a buyer, gets Rupaye 120 as discount, find out how many grams

   of LSD he bought assuming that he purchases a minimum of 200 gms distributed

   among the four drugs on sale.

3. Aamir tampers the ball thrice per over. He deforms the ball .05% of its original shape 

    each time. Find the percentage deformation of the ball due to tampering in an ODI 

    against India in which Aamir bowled 9.3 overs. (Assume that the other bowlers

    DO NOT tamper with the ball in order to simplify the problem). 

 As a follow-up state how much fine should Match Referee Clive Lloyd impose on 

 Indian captain Virat Kohli. 

4. D runs a flourishing company conducting kidnappings for ransom and murder 

among   other ‘normal’ activities like peddling arms diverted from US supplies to

 Pakistan army, drug trafficking etc. The company has fixed expenses to run the 

company HQ and variable expenses for conducting the operations. 

In order to break even, he has to threaten 10 people per day over the telephone. 

40% of the people he threatens are movie stars in Mumbai, 30% are businessmen

 in Delhi, 20% are cricket players in Chennai and 10% are shopkeepers in Kolkata. 

If ISD charges are Rupaye 15, 25, 40, 50 per minute or part thereof from D’s city 

Islamabad to Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai respectively, and the average 

duration of telephone calls to the above categories is 3.5 mins, 4.29 mins, 7.12 mins 

and 2.8 mins respectively and he gets a telephone bill of Rupaye 10,230 in a month,

find out the number of movie stars in Mumbai threatened in that particular month. 

 (Disclaimer : The businessman in question does not reside in Pakistan and nor does 

 any Government official in Pakistan know about his whereabouts).

5. A terrorist group has to provide one AK 47, one AK 49, one Rocket Launcher, 

   50 Grenades and one pack of RDX to each of its recruits for training. One AK 47 

  costs $100; One AK56 costs $150, a Bazooka Rocket Launcher costs $250, 

  a grenade is $3 each, a pack of RDX bomb attached with remote control is $500. 

The terrorist group admits 2,000 new recruits every year out of which 29.84 % are 

court-martialled and another 44.91% get blown up during the practicals for the 

course Suicide Bombing 101. In addition, an estimated 62.39% of graduates will

be neutralized in surgical strikes from across the border. 

Calculate how many such terrorist camps need to be run if at least 2,500 infiltrators 

are required to be sent across the LOC in Kashmir every year. Assume the success 

ratio of infiltration is 9.75%. 

Find out how much money Pakistan Govt has to seek as humanitarian aid from 

US, G7, WHO and UNESCO (jointly and severally) to run this educational program. 

6. If X denotes the stability of democratic Govt. in Pakistan and is given by the following 

   equation : 

                         X exp3 + X exp2 - 16 = i;           Find out X.

As a corollary carry out LaPlace transform of the above function and prove that 

X à0 as t à infinity where t measures the time from current date.

7. Probability of a Pakistani Prime Minister would be shot while holding office is 78%. 

   Probability of a serving army General coming to a violent end is 43%. 

   Find out the probability that a Prime minister who is also an army General will get 

   shot while holding office. Conversely prove that there exists a non-zero probability

   of an army General shooting a Prime Minister. 

8. Find out geometrically the area of Balochistan using Pythagoras Theorem with

   Osama Bin Laden’s correction (That is taking the value of Pi = 7.86 instead of 3.14....), 

   if  Balochistan is taken as a regular heptagon.

9. If Al Qaida is planning to attack some US installations during the midnight Christmas          mass Eastern Time, when should President Sharif phone President of USA  conveying his   deepest sympathies for the losses suffered:

a.  2359 hrs Pakistan local time on 24^th Dec

b.  0001 hrs Pakistan local time on 25^th Dec

c.  0800 hrs Pakistan local time on 25^th Dec

10. If the current budgetary deficit of Pakistan is US $ 10.5 billion and the annual rate of      growth of revenues and expenditure are (-) 3.2% and + 5.9% respectively, find out how   many squadrons of F16s should Pakistan buy from US every year. The current price of a   single F16 can be assumed to be US$ 125 million per plane, and will rise @5% p.a. Assume a squadron consists of 50 planes.

 As per the past experience, wars with India were fought when the budgetary  deficit crosses US$ 50 billion. Find out when the next war with India will be fought.