Girish Gangadharan

Unless you have been living under a rock somewhere, you must have heard about the new Tata Nano – a car from India’s largest Auto manufacturer that costs less than USD $2000. While the Indian media is going gaga over this tiny car which was designed to run on Indian roads where you’d be lucky if you get to your destination without a dent in your vehicle regardless of what you drive because of the traffic jams, lack of discipline and respect for laws, (forget getting there on time) they completely missed the point about the safety features that it woefully lacks. (Phew! That was a long sentence.)

The basic model is less than 2 grand which means no power steering, no power windows, no radio, no air conditioning, NO SHIT. The counter argument for that is that, in India, you don’t have any of such features in a two-wheeler either and the idea is to target the middle class families that owns a two-wheeler to “upgrade” to this car. So of course, they are going to appreciate a vehicle similar to what they have right now, only difference being for a few thousand rupees more (a few hundred USD) the “upgraded” vehicle will have a roof on top and couple of more wheels….isn’t that right Mr. Ratan Tata?

And their plans seem to be ambitious. They plan to hit the US market by 2010. And Europe by 2011. I’ve been living in the US for the past 7 years and I just don’t see how people here would buy this car, for obvious reasons. It’s too small, probably won’t pass the stringent crash tests, max speed is 43 miles/hour, poor mileage and the list goes on.

But here’s the line that caught my attention.

About the pricing of the car, Tata said: “. . . obviously (Nano) would not be a Rs 1-lakh or a $2,500 car (in Europe), it will have all the airbags and all the safety features that would be demanded by the European customers.”

Read the full story here.

Can you believe it? The Indian model doesn’t even come with air bags. Apparently, they were so focused on building something with a budget in mind, they didn’t mind tossing out the basic safety feature. And the Indian government allowed it to be sold to Indian consumers. This just blows me away. The lack of respect for human lives in India is just incomprehensible. The Nov 26th Mumbai terrorist attack killed 183 people. And what did we do? Nothing. This apathy, this insensibility to suffering is just appalling and depressing. Nobody gives a shit.

This reminds me of an incident that happened a couple of years ago. One of my distant distant relatives came to the US for a business visit. He worked for Air India at that time. I don’t know if he still is employed with them. Anyways, he visited my sister’s family (she was in Richardson, TX back then) and was talking about the purpose of his visit when he mentioned that he was here to buy airplanes and jets from the US carriers. He mentioned how his company was getting a good deal since the planes that these people were buying were OUT OF COMMISSION in the US and the US carriers were just selling them away for whatever they can get for it, as the FAA wouldn’t allow them to operate them anymore.

Now take a minute to process that. Planes that have been found UNFIT to fly Americans in the United States, are being sold to the Indian carriers to fly Indians in their domestic market.

I could go on and on about several issues like this, like how only cops that are of higher ranks in India, carry hand guns and the lower level constables carry a simple lathi (bamboo stick). The lone terrorist in Mumbai attacks that was caught alive, killed the police officer who didn’t have a gun when he confronted him in the car that he and his friend were attempting to escape in. The police officer was fighting this terrorist with his bare hands and was holding the barrel of his AK 47 trying to point it away before the killer pulled the trigger and sprayed 16 bullets into the cop’s torso and he died on the spot. However he didn’t let go of the gun even when he dropped dead and that’s how the other cops were able to nab the terrorist.

Can you even imagine such a thing happening in the United States?

So many things like this. Construction workers don’t wear a metal helmet or any sort of protection gear, no shoes (just plain rubber slippers), including women and kids (who are not legally supposed to work anyways. But hey, Welcome to India!), electricians working on lamp posts on the street climb up with a rope tied around their ankles (I have seen this myself several times), patients lying on the floor in the government hospitals puking blood and dying for attention (quite literally)…i can keep going on and on. These are the sad stories of human beings in India, the working class. Don’t even get me started on the plight of animals. I’ll save it for another post.

I don’t understand how the rich keep getting richer in India and everybody says “oh…watch out…India is becoming a super power!”.

What’s the point of being called a super power if you can’t provide the basic facilities for your own citizens?

Just because we have millions of English speaking youngsters graduating every year out of colleges and every 3rd person owning a cell phone and a every middle class family owning a stupid shitty car, and winning Oscar awards (Love A. R. Rahman. He is a God, but he himself admitted it was not his best work), doesn’t mean we have made it, people.

If we don’t start respecting our own fellow Indians and take care of each other, we’ll never be a super power.

I have so much more to say….but what’s the point? Neither you nor I can make a difference. Corruption will always exist. People will always suffer. Rich will rise and fall and there will be another set of goons that replace them.

I cannot let things beyond my control, bother me. It is unhealthy and counterproductive.

I’m just going to do my best and see if I can be of any use to my society. May be sponsor a poor kid’s education or help set up somebody’s small business or pay for somebody’s medical expenses….I don’t know. I just don’t want to keep complaining. I want to be a part of the solution. But as a single man, there is only little I can do. And I guess I just have to live with that.

Obama promised change and change indeed has come to America.

India is waiting it’s turn…

Dec 29th 2008 will go down in history as the day I got engaged to Swapna.

At the risk of sounding cheesy, I’ll nevertheless, say a few things about her. Alright… so here we go…

Although my parents did all the work and found her for me, I must admit that they didn’t do all that bad.

She is a software professional like me and works in Boston. Going by the experience that this long distance relationship has provided us over the last 6 months (For those who don’t know, I live in Dallas, TX which is about 1759 miles from Boston as per Google maps), I can say this much – She is GREAT!

Swapna is a very sweet, loving, caring, understanding, kind, polite and lovable girl that grew up in the same city as I, back in India. We have that thing in common (in addition to a lot of other things) and it makes things a lot easier. For example, music we listen to, movies we like, eating habits, local jokes and the references that go with them etc.

In any case, I know it takes a lot of patience to deal with someone like me (I can hear you going “yeah…no shit!”) .  And I think she is ready, willing and in fact happy to do that for the rest of our life together as a couple.

All said I think she is just beautiful inside out. And I hope I’ll be able to make her just as happy as she makes me and continue doing that for the rest of the journey.

Wish us luck!

My second sister Shyju brought Archith into this beautiful world on Friday, October 3rd 2008. He weighs 7.2 lbs.

More pics on my flickr soon…

That’s what I am now. An MCPD – an abbreviation for Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (Web).

I took exam 70-547 early today and scored 1000 out of 1000. LOL! Can you believe it? I scored 100%. Sometimes I surprise myself.

So this, in addition to exams 70-528 and 70-536 that I had passed earlier this year, makes me an MCPD.

Yay!

Today is Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday. So I figured I’ll post something about violence.

I know. I’m bored (and going to hell).

Stumbled upon wordle today. Gave it my blog’s url and played with it for a while. It’s pretty cool actually. When I finally got bored and stopped, here’s what i had.

Click on the image above for better resolution (Takes you to wordle)

Ok. Before i start talking in detail about the point of this post, i’m obligated to let you know that my brother-in-law is the CEO of Innowize Software Pvt. Ltd, India, that owns and operates trainwize.com.

When i was a teenager, i remember begging my dad to enroll me into a software training course. There were only a few major players like NIIT, SSI, Aptech etc. that offered decent courses. Anyways, my dad finally agreed and spent about $800 approximately on tuition alone, when i joined SSI Tech.This was in 2000-2001, i think.

What I didn’t know back then, was there were a lot of other institutions that offered the same level of training for half the price. It was too late though. The fees was non-refundable. It was pretty sad since my dad had to borrow money from his friends to help pay for that course.

Anyways, that brings me to the point of this post. There are twice as many training centers in India now, especially in the major cities like Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad etc. And there is still a big gap connecting the prospective students and the centers.

Trainwize promises to fill that gap. It is the first of its kind web portal in India, that allows training providers to list their course offerings with all relevant details such as price, duration, course outline and prospective trainees to find courses quickly and effortlessly. It was first launched in Chennai and they are planning to open branches in Bangalore and Hyderabad very soon.

With details about training courses from training providers of various sizes and types of offerings, this portal will have the most comprehensive listing of training courses in India. Its easy to use interface and features such as ratings and featured providers will make it the online destination of choice for training seekers, whether they are recent graduates, or professionals looking to upgrade their skills.

The idea definitely has potential, given the market in India. Since this is his maiden venture, i wish him and his company good luck.

Of course! Isn’t that what the world needs right now? Yet another browser?

“Oh…we know what you are thinking. Why would I dump the browser (read Internet Explorer/Firefox/Opera/Camino/Safari) I use every day and even try yours, let alone switch? Well, here’s why. Our new browser has speed-dial! Bet your browser doesn’t have that feature….huh?”

Ok…let me stop being cynical now and cut to the chase. Who could possibly build yet another browser and actually get people to sit up and take notice?

No points for guessing it right. The correct answer is Google.

Ladies and Gentleman, Google Chrome is at your service.  (UPDATE** : Back up again. Link updated to point back to Chrome’s home page.  I’m still going to leave the link to the comic.)

(UPDATE* : Apparently not. Seems like they pulled it down as soon as the word got out. So i have updated the link to now point to the cartoon, from Google itself.)

I was actually looking forward to Android, thinking that was the next big thing from Google although it’s been in the works for years now. But this one just sneaked up on us.

I’m really curious to see if it is good enough to beat the most popular browser.

Oh….it’d better be good…

Given all the outrage over Apple’s dirty manufactured shortage of the iPhone 3G, and the aggravating activation process where the users had to connect the phone to their computers and wait for hours and hours for iTunes to establish a connection to the pool of servers, which by the way couldn’t seem to handle the traffic as people from about 21 countries were upgrading/activating/syncing their “revolutionary portable communication devices”, it may not be unreasonable if people actually end up blending their iPhones bricks as shown below.

Here’s an funny quote from Delhi Queer Pride 2008

Hindu Muslim Sikh Isai Hetero Homo Bhai Bhai

meaning “Doesn’t matter if you are a Hindu or a Muslim or Sikh or a Christian (Isai), homosexuals and heterosexuals are brothers.”

Bhai = Brother in Hindi.

Apparently, they just took an old statement Indian government has been using for decades, calling for unity in diversity that goes like this

Hindu Muslim Sikh Isai Aapas mein hai Bhai Bhai

meaning “Doesn’t matter if you are a Hindu or a Muslim or Sikh or a Christian (Isai), we are all brothers amongst us.”

We are seeking the right to love. was basically the point, hundreds of homosexual rights activists that participated in India’s largest gay pride parade, were trying to make when they marched through the cities of Kolkata, Delhi and Bangalore.

Things are obviously showing signs of changing. I knew there were gay people in India and i knew they didn’t want to come out even if they had the opportunity. What i didn’t know was that homosexuality was illegal there. That’s right. Illegal. You could get arrested for your sexual orientation.

Wow.