The Way We Were

In addition to the usual must-see touristy bits, Oxford has some gems tucked away that we have been introduced to (thank you Keith). The University of Oxford's Museum of Natural History is one such fascinating place. The interior is awe-inspiring with tall iron pillars and cross-beams framing a glass roof that lets the light in. The exhibits take you back eons, and you get the feeling of being part of a bigger plan. Dot and I have been here several times and we make it a point, time and walking capacity allowing, to bring our visitors here. We learn something new every visit. The majority vote is "love it!" If you do swing by these parts, I promise to take you there.

The Stars of The Show

... or the reason you will find me peeping out of our bedroom window every so often.

Aren't they absolutely gorgeous?!

A Quick Refresher in Logic

Girl cousin is expecting her T.Y.B.Com (final year, Bachelor of Commerce) results today. Mumbai University has made available a website on which people can check results - in theory that is. All I have been getting for the last four hours is "the server at www.mu.ac.in is taking too long to respond" and mostly blank pages with a few scattered broken links to images.

Fact 1- Tens of thousands of students took this exam.
Fact 2 (resulting from Fact 1) - All of these students will have some result or another.
Fact 3 (resulting from Fact 2) - Almost all of these students will, in this day and age, have access to the Internet, and if they don't, may even make special arrangements for access, to log on to a given website and check the results - and yes, this will all happen at the time the results are declared.

Isn't it then only logical that there will be tens of thousands of hits on the given website, all around the same time? I wonder what it takes to realise this and make sure the website is up and running (well) at the time it is needed the most. This is India we are talking about - the globally acclaimed technological superpower. Why?

Can you stop the bombs please?!

This is not about Iraq.

It is about bombing my mailbox with forwarded e-mail that goes 'this-is-so-bloody-funny', 'you-will-die-or-rot-in-hell-if-you-don't-send-this-to-millions', 'you-are-a-heartless-bastard-if-you-hit-delete', 'you-are-my-mostest-bestest-friend-in-the-whole-galaxy' and tons of other tripe. I will not have it. I am a sucker for funny, and I do appreciate the odd tidbit from friends, but I hate people picking up my address from someone else's list to send me arbitrary mailings or just hitting 'forward' because they don't want to die because they didn't. Hate is the word. I will tell you (and badly) that your unsolicited mass mailing is not appreciated. I know you think of me and it makes me very happy. It would make me much happier if you didn't hit 'forward' every time you did.

P.S. You could shout the title of this post in the manner of Richard O'Brien in Crystal Maze - "Can you start the fans please?!" (Ping me if you need a crash course in '90s television appreciation.)

Talking Dirty

The one big difference I find between job advertisements here and those in India is in talking about money.

Let's face it - how much we get paid has a lot to do with why we're doing that job. Here, when a job is advertised, you are told clearly what the grade of the job is (for sectors like government, university, health), which corresponds to a predefined scale, or you are told what the salary offered is - plain and simple. This may be a generalisation, but from experience, I can say it is largely true. In India, however, other than government jobs where the grade is advertised, every other posting reads "salary will not be a constraint for a deserving candidate", "a compensation to match the best in the industry", "salary will be commensurate with experience", or better still, "apply with expected salary", or no mention of salary at all!

The talk of money is considered dirty and unnecessary, and that makes me raving mad! All the subjectivity and airy-fairyness (sic) in discussing wages is a waste of the advertisers' and applicants' time. Is 'deserving' not a subjective attribute? What are the best salaries in the industry? Is 'experience' perfectly commensurable? I could 'expect' the world - would you give it to me? It is hugely unfair to keep applicants in the dark about what the salary set aside for a position is. You could either sell yourself short or be seen as expecting too much and thus not be considered favourably.

I remember looking for a job when I got back from doing a Masters' degree in Australia. As usual, the ad had no mention of a salary. I applied, got called for the interview, and was offered the job, all without any mention of what the salary was going to be. I tried hard to be diplomatic and introduce the delicate subject. They asked me what I 'expected'. When I replied appropriately, I was promptly asked what my last salary was. I was a bit cheeky and asked whether they wanted my last Australian salary or my last Indian one. They didn't think it was funny at all and said "Indian". I told them and they said "we'll offer you four thousand rupees more than that". I lost it at that point. I said, "it's been a year and a half since I earned that salary, and I have since got a Masters' degree, worked the whole time, and I am much better equipped and skilled than I was a couple of years ago. They turned around and said, "but you can't go to a very high salary just like that". Needless to say, I didn't take the job. This wasn't very long ago and I don't know how much it has changed. If the job ads in the Times of India's Ascent supplement are anything to go by, it's still not looking good.

I am older and wiser, and I am all for talking dirty!

Forgive the Silence...

I (we) have had a full house and full lives for the last whole month, and have only just begun to breathe. I'm sorry I have neglected you. I am back. You know you love me.

In the Presence of Greatness

"The more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I knew, I'm learning again
The more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I'd figured out, I have to learn again"
- 'The Heart of the Matter', Don Henley

Listening to Amartya Sen, on "What Theory of Justice?", at OU's Sheldonian Theatre, was an enlightening and a humbling experience. I am not ashamed to say, there was a whole lot I couldn't quite grasp. I have never been a reader of economic theory and have always been intimidated by numbers (I can see you shaking your head, going "whoever said economics has to do with numbers?!"), but I did listen and learn at the lecture, and I feel a tiny bit more informed and therefore, I daresay, enlightened. And yes, I paid for the enlightenment with a very numb bum! I know I risk public damnation, but I wasn't very impressed with the Sheldonian Theatre. I do see and value it's place in history though, and I know it is almost hallowed with all the great minds it has housed.

This makes for an interesting argument (for those interested). How can you objectively evaluate something that is known to be 'great' without running the risk of giving it too much or too little credit? What if it really is mediocre and lives in the bubble of global media hype? What if it really is brilliant, but you just don't know enough to see the brilliance?

Dot and I (yes, we have a collective philosophy, for some issues, that is usually hotly debated and then agreed upon) believe that history and dominant public opinion count for something. They cannot, simply, tell you though - yes, this is good, or, no, this is bad - but can give you something to start with.

If you still haven't got my drift, these conversations might illustrate the point I'm trying to make:

Conversation 1
Us (Dot and I): You have to hear the Christ Church Cathedral Choir perform; they're brilliant! Some say, one of the best in the world!
BoyCousin (after hearing the choir perform): They were okay. My choir at St. Paul's sounds much better than them!

Conversation 2
UndergradIndianBoy (outside the Sheldonian, after the Amartya Sen lecture): This lecture was f***a***! He didn't give any solution - only mentioned the problem! That even I could do. I knew the answer to who should get the flute. It's very simple. I was not impressed at all!
UndergradIndianGirl (same place, same context, not listening to the boy, while she is busy unlocking her bicycle): Yaa, I agree with you ya!
Us: Sigh!
Dot: I've heard this somewhere: if you're not communist at 18, shame on you; if you're still communist at 30, shame on you.