Buran - Did you know???

I love anything that has an engine and moves faster than 50 km/hr. So my love for aviation is a no-brainer. I always wanted to be a pilot and in fact, I still do. I would like to take at least a Private Pilot license some time in the near future. Space, astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Virgin Galactic are topics that I thought I always kept myself updated on. But I realized that even though I considered myself a big space junkie, I was very ignorant about what was actually happening in space.

Most of you must have noticed the recent developments regarding the NASA Space Shuttle program, unless you live in Mars that is. In case you are a Martian, then first of all "Hi dear Martian, you are welcome to visit my home unless you plan to invade us poor earthlings, we are already doing a damn good job at destroying ourselves", and secondly let me just inform you that after an amazing journey that lasted 30 years, the NASA Space Shuttle program has come to an end, mainly thanks or no thanks to Mr. Barack Obama (He had originally promised to shut down the Guantanamo Bay Prison, but on second thoughts I guess he decided to shut down the space program instead). There has been a lot of disagreements with this decision and several people, including NASA astronauts, have heaped praises on the Space Shuttle program, claiming it to be the most advanced system of its kind and at the same time have criticized the US government's decision to prematurely end the program. Read this article to get a good sense of the sadness and regret of Americans, pilots and other space lovers. An excerpt :


".....These craft are still well within their functional worklife, still capable of carrying man and machine into space. It is a shame the program is ending as early as it is. The shuttle should continue to carry NASA astronauts to the ISS and low earth orbit for at least the next decade.


.....So let's get over the political arguments, the disagreements with the decision and let's support the organization that even made any of this possible in the first place, NASA. We have a long hard road ahead for a replacement vehicle, a HUGE political battle for funding and continued support of NASA by the US government. "


So all in all, I was feeling a little sad that such an awesome machine is being put to sleep, mainly because the US needs the money to fight useless wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and soon there will be several other countries in this list from the way things are going (Iran, North Korea and Libya are almost literally begging the US to attack them from the way they are handling their affairs). All over the media, the sadness at this great larger-than-life space shuttle program coming to an end is pretty obvious and it kinda leaves you with a heavy feeling and makes you think "So what next?".


But guess what? How many of you have heard about the Buran Program?? I don't think many.Vladimir Radyuhin has written an amazing article on the present situation of the space travel, which paints a realistic picture of expectations and public sentiment vs. Reality, a few excerpts (I have highlighted the major points in bold underline) :


"...When the U.S. embarked on designing a space shuttle in the late 1960s, it was widely believed that reusable space vehicles would win hands down over expendable ships by drastically cutting down the cost of spaceflight. However, the result turned out to be exactly the opposite. The cost of the 30-year space shuttle programme was more than $1 billion per launch, roughly equivalent to the cost of launching 20 Soyuz spacecraft.

The U.S. will save a lot of money by switching over to the Russian space vehicle. NASA contracts with Roskosmos for ferrying 18 U.S. astronauts to the ISS and back aboard Soyuz ships over the next five years (plus 24-month training for each astronaut, room and board, flight operations and crew rescue) will cost the U.S. only as much as a single shuttle flight. 

Soyuz being transported to the launch pad

A big advantage of the U.S. shuttles, of course, was their freight capacity. A shuttle could take to space almost 30 tonnes of cargo, 10 times more thanSoyuz, and bring down to earth two tonnes of payload, compared with just 50 kg by Soyuz. Roskosmos acknowledged the critical role of U.S. shuttles in setting up the ISS by placing bulky sections in orbit. Why then, Roskosmos asked, are the sleek U.S. “birds” gone, while the old Soyuz craft are still in business?

The answer, Roskosmos itself said, was simple: the Soyuz was more reliable and cost-effective. The spacecraft had an impeccable safety record: not a fatal accident over the past 40 years. The two Soyuz accidents involving fatalities date back to the early stages of the programme. The Soyuz-1 descent capsule crashed to earth in 1967, killing cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, because its parachutes failed to open, and the Soyuz-11 mission in 1971 ended in a disaster when its capsule with three cosmonauts depressurised on re-entry.

While the U.S. space shuttle was far more comfortable to ride, especially on re-entry and landing, than the crump Soyuz, it certainly trailed Soyuz in safety. Out of the five space shuttles built during the 30-year-long programme, two were destroyed in accidents. In 1986, Challenger, carrying seven astronauts, broke apart 73 seconds into its flight due to a faulty engine seal. In 2003,Columbia exploded during re-entry into the earth's atmosphere, killing all seven crew members.

The only time Soyuz was struck by an accident similar to the one that destroyedChallenger, the crew were rescued thanks to the Russian ship's launch escape system. The accident occurred in 1983 at the Baikonur launch pad. The crew were in the spaceship waiting for takeoff when a leaking fuel valve at the base of the rocket set off a fire that engulfed the rocket within seconds. Ground controllers activated the escape system, which flung away the top sections ofSoyuz with the cosmonauts inside, free from the three-stage rocket and lifted them more than one km before the descent capsule parachuted safely to land even as the launch pad crumbled in flames.

U.S. commentators who praise the sophistication of the U.S. space shuttle compared to the “primitive” Russian craft overlook the fact that the Soviet Union built its own space shuttle, Buran (Snowstorm) which, in some ways, including safety features, was superior to the American shuttle. For example, it was fitted with high-tech ejection seats for the crew that could be activated at altitudes of up to 24 km. At greater heights, Buran could detach from a malfunctioning booster rocket and glide down to a soft landing. Such an escape system could have saved the Challenger crew. Buran made its first and only flight in fully automatic mode without a crew in 1988. To overcome a crosswind of 20 metres per second, Buran's autopilot recalculated its landing trajectory and the spaceship landed on the runway from the opposite direction, to the amazement of ground controllers. It was a feat that remains unrivalled.

The Soviet space shuttle programme came to an abrupt end after the break-up of the Soviet Union, mainly for lack of funds. But before that, Buran helped push forward arms control talks between the U.S. and the Soviet Union because its successful flight demonstrated the Russian ability to counter President Ronald Reagan's “Star Wars” programme.

Buran was designed as the first fully reusable shuttle system, with all rocket boosters to be equipped with parachutes and retrorocket soft landing systems. By contract, the U.S. space shuttles were semi-reusable because they had a throwaway central fuel tank and its solid rocket boosters (SRB) had to be heavily refurbished after splashing in the ocean. While the U.S. space shuttle glided to earth in unpowered mode and, therefore, had only one attempt to land,Buran was designed to carry two jet engines for increased landing manoeuvres. Also, it had superior thermal protection tiles, used less toxic and more efficient liquid fuel, had a higher payload capacity and was designed to carry 10 crew members against seven by the U.S. shuttle. Buran was the first and only space shuttle ever to perform an unmanned flight in fully automatic mode until the U.S. Air Force launched its Boeing X-37 space plane last year. But then, X-37 was a much smaller craft than the 100-tonne Buran."


Damn, those Russians are smart. For almost the same size, they built a shuttle that can carry a payload of 100 tons, as compared to NASA Space shuttle's 30 ton limit, it can be completely re-used, whereas the NASA Space Shuttle is not fully re-usable, and to top it, the Buran has 2 jet engines which enable it to manoeuvre within our atmosphere, whereas the NASA space shuttle has none, so on entering the earth's atmosphere, it has exactly one shot at making a proper landing and if the astronaut in the driver's seat is sleeping then its all over, on the other hand, Buran has proved to us that it can successfully go to space and land back on earth with or without men, no matter what the conditions are. Only if that idiot Mikhail Gorbachev didn't ruin the party for us. Well let's keep our fingers crossed and wait for the next great development.

Management Lesson - Boss

Management Lesson - Horse & Pig

An interesting management lesson shared by a friend of mine :

Horse, Pig and their Boss before the incident in the story

" There was a farmer who collected horses; he only needed one more breed to complete his collection. One day, he found out that his neighbor had the particular horse breed he needed. So, he constantly bothered his neighbor until he sold it to him. A month later, the horse became ill and he called the veterinarian, who said: Well, your horse has a virus. He must take this medicine for three days. I'll come back on the 3rd day and if he's not better, we're going to have to put him down.
Nearby, the pig listened closely to their conversation.
The next day, they gave him the medicine and left.
The pig approached the horse and said: Be strong, my friend. Get up or else they're going to put you to sleep!
On the second day, they gave him the medicine and left.
The pig came back and said: Come on buddy, get up or else you're going to die! Come on, I'll help you get up. Let's go! One, two, three...
On the third day, they came to give him the medicine and the vet said: Unfortunately, we're going to have to put him down tomorrow. Otherwise, the virus might spread and infect the other horses.
After they left, the pig approached the horse and said: Listen pal, it's now or never! Get up, come on! Have courage! Come on! Get up! Get up! That's it, slowly! Great! Come on, one, two, three... Good, good. Now faster, come on.... Fantastic! Run, run more! Yes! Yay! Yes! You did it, you're a champion!!!
All of a sudden, the owner came back, saw the horse running in the field and began shouting: It's a miracle! My horse is cured. This deserves a party. Let's kill the pig!

Point for reflection: This often happens in the workplace. Nobody truly knows which employee actually deserves the merit of success, or who's actually contributing the necessary support to make things happen.

LEARNING TO LIVE WITHOUT RECOGNITION IS A SKILL

If anyone ever tells you that your work is unprofessional, remember: amateurs built the Ark and professionals built the Titanic."

The pig after the incident !!!

Interesting isn't it? Sadly its also very true, the companies that really value their employees and their contributions are rare and few.  

Shaitan - Movie Review

DISCLAIMER : This post is titled ‘Shaitan : The Review’ but as much as I have raved on about this absolutely fantabulous piece of art, I have also rambled a lot more on Bollywood and the inspiration behind insane shit like this. All this makes this an extremely long post (with no actual review!!! if you want the plot of the movie then just go read this), but for a work of genius as brilliant as this, nothing less would have been justified, this is my ode to these great artists. Don’t blame me if you fall asleep midway, I already warned you  ;-) , read on and do give me your 2 cents worth…

Chapter 1

When I was much younger and when we used to watch Hindi or regional language movies together as a family, I always used to ask my dad that how come in every movie the villain always loses and the hero always wins. I was pretty surprised by the fact that even an extremely brilliant, superbly charismatic & sexy villain cannot even get away with the smallest of crimes, how much ever smart he/she is, the hero always has the last laugh by the time its the climax of the movie. As I grew up I realized that this, apart from the intention of giving out a good social message, was also highly influenced by our cultural ancestry. Most of our films are still loosely based on the epic 'Ramayana', in more than one ways. As in 'Ramayana', the hero is painfully squeaky clean and always wins, there's always a villain who might be extremely accomplished and ingenious (like the ten heads of 'Raavan' is supposed to indicate mastery of ten different subjects, to be precise the 4 Vedas and the 6 Upanishads, moreover, he was a staunch devotee of Shiva and has supposedly received blessings and gifts directly from the lord himself), but how much ever skillful the villain is, he's always ugly, mean and he always loses. Hollywood was like a breath of fresh air, the industry in US was much more creatively, technically and morally advanced. The film-makers were experimenting with all kinds of crazy concepts and innovations, including the traditional stereotypes of villains and heroes.

Just look around us, or better look in the mirror. Can we see anybody that is anywhere close to perfection around us? Is there one person that we know who always does the right thing, or always upholds the morals taught to us right from childhood? Obviously it is not practical to be always honest and to always do the right thing. All of us, including you and me, have done, thought and will continue to do many things which contradict with the values that we are supposed to be upholding. Come on, get real, it need not be a murder or a robbery or a rape, but I'm sure all of us have at least done some small thing or the other, which we would not be proud to tell our mothers. But the evergreen Bollywood heroes are from another planet itself. for e.g. they will be in love with a girl for decades but the feeling of lust never crosses their minds, they don't even try to kiss!!!

Well painfully slowly, all that has changed now. Several leading actors of the day refused to play 2 defining negative characters of Hindi cinema, and the guy who did play those 2 roles, now rules the industry in such a way that he single-handedly overshadows the glitz and glamour of everyone else combined together. 'King' Khan's depiction of negativity in 'Baazigar' and 'Darr' redefined box-office formulas and threw away the typical stereotypes. Over the years, Bollywood has completely revolutionized itself. Initially it was run like any other business in India, in a shoddy family-oriented way. It was a skilled trade, like carpentry or fishery, and the tricks of the trade were passed on from generation to generation. Everyone, from the light boy to the superstar had some kind of hereditary connection to the film world and it was sealed shut to outsiders. Of course there were many exceptions to the rule, but not enough to cause a massive shift in ideology. Prodigies like Ram Gopal Varma (RGV) made major dents in the traditional thinking and inspired more new comers to experiment with all aspects of a film. Soon the scale of economics got so huge that Bollywood started attracting major foreign investment and when the Hollywood studios started pouring money, along with it came years of expertise which has transformed our movies completely beyond recognition. All of a sudden our camera angles, editing, sound recording, movie print and in general our story-telling were as good if not better than Hollywood movies. India has never been short of talent. Indians are extremely talented in many ways but creatively, we are on another level itself. A small town artist in India can and does create stunning logos etc. for companies, in fact on par or even better than the ones created by international advertising firms, the only major difference being that the small town artist might call it an 'emblem' and gets a few rupees, while the ad company calls it 'brand identity' and rakes in millions. Critically acclaimed film-makers, like RGV, make cinematic masterpieces, for a fraction of the budget of a Hollywood highschool comedy.

Chapter 2

The talk of bollywood town these days is that Anurag Kashyap is the new Ram Gopal Varma. An immensely talented maverick, Kashyap had a very troubled childhood, reportedly suffering 11 years of child abuse, which led to him dabbling in drugs, booze and cinema in order to overcome his trauma. Anurag Kashyap got his first major break when he co-wrote the script for the cult classic RGV flick 'Satya' following which he worked on a few major projects with RGV, Mani Ratnam (Kashyap wrote the dialogues for 'Yuva') and others. His pre-Satya hangout buddies included RGV prodigy Sriram Raghavan (who went on to make the masterpiece ‘Ek Hasina Thi’ and ‘Johnny Gaddar’) and Shivam Nair (he made ‘Ahista Ahista’) amongst others. All these guys were insanely creative but also had an inclination towards the dark side of humanity.
They worked on different projects which included a docu-drama on a serial killer called Auto Shankar. Shivam Nair had oodles of information on serial killers and the likes, whereas Kashyap had loads of ideas regarding a movie based on his buddies who were members in a rock band. That’s when he got the idea to merge the rock band idea with the Joshi-Abhyankar serial murders (if you haven’t already heard about these murders, follow the link and get your blood curdled !!!) which resulted in the what is supposed to be Indian cinema at its best. Made in 2003, this movie was not allowed to be released, even with an 'A' rating, by the Indian Censor Board for the following reasons :

1. The film glorifies violence
2. It shows the modus operandi of a crime (killing of a police officer)
3. It shows excessive use of drugs
4. It has double meaning dialogues (with sexual undertones)
5. It has no positive characters
6. It does not carry a social message


In the original first draft of 'Paanch', the protagonist, played by Kay Kay Menon, was supposed to be imaginary, like Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) in 'Fight Club'. But the concept was too alien for Bollywood masala-formula producers and in order to get financing, Kashyap re-wrote the script several times and at later stages also included multiple songs bending to the demands of financiers. If released on time, 'Paanch' would have forever changed the future of Kashyap, Kay Kay and Bollywood. If you liked 'Shaitan' and Kashyap or if you are a serious art connoisseur then 'Paanch' is the movie to watch. It has been shown at various film festivals around the world and all those who have seen the film, are surprised it has been refused a certificate. People have been congratulating him on the film's realistic approach. Directors like Ram Gopal Varma, Govind Nihalani, Sudhir Mishra, Kundan Shah, Ketan Mehta, Aziz Mirza and Farhan Akhtar have liked the film and have hailed it as path breaking, but too bad for you that the movie is banned in India......or is it??? Thanks to online piracy and unrestricted communications using internet, it is now possible to do a lot of things that was not even fathomable a couple of years back. Click here to download 'Paanch', a movie several people are dying to see, but are not able to coz they don't have the good fortune to visit film festivals and coz they haven't heard about torrents and satanicreflections.blogspot.com ;-)   


Chapter 3

'Paanch' was basically a story of 5 members of a rock band, set in an ultra-urbane landscape, with everybody doing massive amounts of drugs and other crazy stuff. The wikipedia article on 'Paanch' says :


"The story depicts what ambition, immorality, greed and angst, unmistakably the products of urban life, can do to an ordinary person. A little mischief for the sake of success leads a group of 5 wannabe rock stars to get entangled in a gory web of murder and betrayal. What follows is a shocking thriller of a story, supported aptly by some great performances, the best coming from Kay Kay Menon and Tejaswini Kolhapure. The movie has a great musical score by Vishal Bhardwaj. The songs, most of which Anurag Kashyap interestingly uses up in the first 15 minutes, are brilliant. So is the background music. Another high point of the movie is the cinematography, which impresses upon the viewer an aura of fast-paced urbanity juxtaposed with dark, ruthless bloodshed. There is a compelling tension and gloom that permeate the movie towards the latter half."

As you can see for yourself, this almost reads like a review for 'Shaitan' doesn't it? To say that 'Shaitan' is actually 'Paanch' with its edges roughed out would be an insult to the efforts put in, but it does have a lot of the same genetics as its controversial unreleased 'elder brotha'. 'Shaitan' was in fact already finalised and was set for shooting, even dates were booked for all the stars including the beautiful Kalki Koechlin (who is Kahyap's wife btw, and this is a major reason for him to be introduced to this project), and it was only at the eleventh hour that Kashyap hopped on board as producer. Basically all the reasons that 'Paanch' was banned have been eliminated, like introducing strong positive characters, avoiding excessive violence on screen time by actually shooting the murder scenes from less bloodier angles, sending across a strong social message etc. and at the same time all those features that made 'Paanch' a masterpiece have been improved on and incorporated in 'Shaitan', like crazy cinematography, riveting background score and amazing perfomances from the entire cast. The collaboration of Kashyap and cinematographer R. Madhi, who previously worked in major tamil films results in pure visual magic. By using several tried & tested tricks and by playing around with their creativity, they have given true movie buffs a real treat, and several scenes stand out like the breaking the beer bottle on the nosy pricks head and banging the shit out of him, the smoke coming out of K.C.'s mouth as he plays pool, the weird angles of being inside the bottle when they play 'dare', the angle from the point-of-view (POV for you porn lovers ;-)!!!!) of the ball when K.C. dribbles the ball on the bat, skillful and  extremely innovative use of high-speed cameras (so many of the scenes are shot so beautifully in super-slow motion, btw if you haven't already seen 'American History X' either commit suicide right now or go see it right away!!!! Its another cinematic masterpiece that has a lot of ground-breaking photography which is still very much contemporary though the movie itself was released in 1998!!!! Go see it!!!!) 


Chapter 4

Recently two events were caught in the eye of a 'gossip storm' in Britain. When Sanjiv Mehta bought the rights to the brand name 'East India Company' and when Ratan Tata claimed that the mindset of the workforce of the Jaguar Land Rover factories (the buying of which itself was another major controversy) was of laziness, the british tabloids called these events the ultimate moments of 'Empire strikes back', because after several hundred years of bossing around Indians, now they are getting bossed around, and this will continue the same way for the foreseeable future. 


Regionalism, communalism and differentiating based on caste, creed, sex etc. is a totally stupid emotion and will never be of any use in the long term and I totally DO NOT advocate this. But even though the more knowledgeable people acknowledge and practice this equality, there has always been a major bias in Bollywood against Southies. Even though South Indians have a major role to play in almost every aspect of Mumbai, the average Northie Mumbaikar is always a little too quick to discount this fact and embark on her/his mockery of everything south. The list of extraordinarily successful Southies is endless, from the greatest respectable dons of Mumbai Haji Mastan and Varadarajan Mudaliar (Dawood is just a money-power-slut hungry Pakistan agent ;-).....honestly go read the news mate, there is more than ample evidence to suggest the same), the greatest music director Asia has ever seen A.R. Rahman, the best sound engineer in India Resul Pookutty (if u don't already know him....he won the bloody Oscars for pete's sake mate!!!!!).....the list goes on, for that matter even Ram Gopal Varma is from Hyderabad and not a Marathi as many ignorant baboons have assumed incorrectly.

I usually try to go for a movie without reading or hearing anything about it. This means that I usually do not have much expectations from any movie and so am pleasantly surprised when the movie turns out to be awesome. I assumed from all the hype & hoopla that Anurag Kashyap himself was directing 'Shaitan' and since the opening credits rolled by alongside with visuals, I didn't clearly notice any of the names. But I was a little amused to hear the familiar sounds of the 'Chenda'  (a traditional percussion instrument used extensively during festivals in Kerala) during the opening credits. Moreover, the movie is peppered with references to the South, like the wife of the cop Arvind Mathur (played by Rajeev Khandelwal) is shown as a South Indian dance teacher and is played by Sheethal Menon (the wife of the director himself) and there are several instances when popular traditional South Indian instruments are used for the riveting background score, notably the 'Chenda Melam' soundtrack when Arvind Mathur metes out his own brand of justice when he throws a sex offender from a first floor of a villa. So when in the closing credits I saw that our malayali homeboy Bejoy Nambiar has directed this, one of the best Hindi movies of all time, and the crazy insane cinematography was directed by another Southie, R. Madhi, it was like a little 'Empire strikes back' moment. 


Now let's just go back to the first chapter of this post, where I mentioned that bad guys always lose and the good guys always win. Yes, 'Shaitan' is revolutionary , path-breaking and will soon be a cult classic, but due to Indian Censor board stipulations, but more importantly due to moral responsibility, the good guys still win and the bad guys still lose. The detailed discussion of why the good guys always win will require another humongous post, but that's for another day. In a totally out-of-the-box perspective, 'Shaitan' can actually be seen as an old-fashioned morality tale packaged in an extremely funky brand-new bottling.  Kudos to Bejoy Nambiar, Anurag Kashyap and the whole team for creating a true masterpiece.


And hey, thanks for reading ;-), your feedback is most welcome.


RATING 
                   (Six out of Five Stars for Excellence!!!!)

My Typical Week!!!

Portrait of a Don

Follow this link to read about one of the most notorious people in the world. This is a must read biography of one of the most wanted men on the planet, Sheikh Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar. Dawood was No. 4 on the Forbes 2008 list of The World's 10 Most Wanted criminals but the interesting thing is that he was also no. 50 on the Forbes 2009 list of The World's Most Powerful People, the very next year. This article totally glamourises the international don and his story will be truly inspirational to wannabe-dons and criminals. He must really be very very smart to reach where he's reached and still not only evade capture but also build a thriving empire and live a life of a king. His wealth is estimated to be between $7-20 billion dollars making him the amongst the top 3 richest criminals in the world and amongst the top 10 richest people!!!!

Wake Up Call

Its time for a change !!! I got a very sharp wake up call last evening and realized that its time for me to wake up from a very long dream, a dream so good that I fooled myself into thinking that I was still sleeping so that the dream could go on !!!!! I will let the pictures do the talking in this blog post.

 “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

- Count Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

"They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."

 - Andy Warhol

Cricket Gift

Andrew Flintoff is now the brand ambassador of Audi for the middle east sector. Andrew Flintoff !! If there are any middle eastern people reading this they would be wondering who the hell is this guy !!! Cricket is the last sport arabs have on their minds and Flintoof is definitely not the first cricketer that they would connect with. Probably the fact that Flintoff has been living in Dubai for sometime now with his family led to Audi's decision. Anyways he's got 2 Dubai plated Q7's as a gift !!

The happiness is pretty obvious !!!!

F1 Gift

The beautiful sculpture in metal that you see above is the beast that propelled the young 23-year old Sebastian Vettel to the 2nd position in the 2009 F1 World Championship. This car played a major role in him setting a lot of new lap records, breaking a lot of F1 records and him being nicknamed the 'New Schumacher'. 


Red Bull Racing was born from the ashes of the failed Jaguar Racing team and the major force behind getting this team to be a serious title contender was the Chief Technical Officer Adrian Newey who was poached from the McLaren team in 2006. Adrian Newey is considered a genius in F1 design. This is what is written about him on the Red Bull Racing website :


" During 30 years in motorsport Adrian Newey has developed something of a legend. He’s heralded as an original thinker, a maverick designer, the heir to the legacy of Colin Chapman and a softly-spoken genius. But the thing he’s best known for is winning...


...It’s a widely-held belief that Adrian does his best work whenever F1 undergoes one of its periodic regulatory upheavals, moving development away from number crunching and briefly allowing creativity and intuition to come back to the fore. 2009 demonstrated that in ample measure: Red Bull Racing’s breakthrough season had Adrian’s RB5 taking five pole positions and score six victories....


...The idea of a clean sheet of paper isn’t just a metaphor. Despite the non-stop technological advancement of F1, Adrian still likes to use the drawing board rather than a supercomputer when he’s feeling creative. Away from the office he indulges a passion for classic sports cars, as both a keen collect and amateur racer. Not one to let the laws of physics stand in the way of a borderline overtaking opportunity, he’s had some high-profile scraps in recent years, but - undaunted by the bruises and occasional concussion - has progressed to more serious racing, finishing a highly creditable fourth in class and 22nd overall in the 2007 24 Heures Du Mans while driving an AF Corse Ferrari F430. He also won the 2009 Goodwood Revival TT Race, sharing his Lightweight E-Type Jaguar with his old friend, Bobby Rahal."

So when the car he designed secured 6 wins from 17 races with 5 pole positions and 6 lap records broken, what did Red Bull do ?? They gave him the car as a gift at the Goodwood festival of speed last week !!! When Red Bull secured 1-2 victories at China & Britain Adrian celebrated by donuting a Ferrari California on Team Principal Christian Horner's lawn and partially ruining it....this time around rumours are that the grass is gonna totally come off, or worse the tremendous torque for RB5 might cause the planet to spin the opposite direction !!!

Some of the information and all of the pictures were taken from the Red Bull Racing Website. Thank you Red Bull !!!

Population Explosion

Source : http://www.china-profile.com/data/tab_rurpop_1.htm

According to this statistic, the total population of China in 1978 was 963 million people and is currently 1,324,655,000 (2008 Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators). The reason I chose to show the population in 1978 is because it is later in that year that the Chinese government started implementing the One-Child policy.

The Indian population is 1,139,964,932 (2008 Source : Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators). This is 17.31% of the total world population, which is a significant slice, pretty close to the 20% contribution by the Chinese.

Back in the 1950's when the Chinese population was nowhere close to a billion, they started encouraging the Two-Child policy. By 1978 when they realised that they were soon going to touch the billion mark and that something needed to be done and fast, they strictly implemented the One-Child policy. Like every other Chinese policy this one too receives opposition and criticism from different parts of the world. Some even call it violation and abuse of the basic human rights. But more than 76% of the Chinese support it and believe that it is good for them. The Chinese government claims that till date this policy has helped reduce 300-400 million people. That is nearly 30% of the current population !!!  

Why is population a problem ??

Personally I feel that population is one of the major causes of misery and problems in this world. I feel that with the right population, there will be almost no problems in our world. Even if there are a few problems, they would be very much controllable and could be solved. It is the biggest crisis facing the planet today and  is so big and so surrounded by delicate issues that most people will not face it. Simply put there are at least 200,000 more people alive today than yesterday. Tomorrow there will be at least another 200,000 more. Just think about all the current problems the world faces, really just think about those problems, you will notice that a lot of  problems in this world finally boils down to extreme or intense competition which is because we have to compete with each other for the limited resources that we have.


The funniest part is that the world's most fastest growing country in terms of population is India, and nobody in India is even thinking about this it seems. Poverty, corruption, over-crowded cities, transit systems stretched to their seams, violence, drug abuse, unemployment, over-zealous religious madmen, terrorism....a lot of these problems can be traced directly or indirectly to over population. And what are we doing about it ? Painting 'Hum Do, Hamare Do' (literally translated 'We Two, Our Two' implying families to have just 2 kids) on the backs of trucks and rickshaws !!! Not a single politician has made this issue their major campaign agenda...Why ?? Because a few of the major religions in this world oppose birth control. In India and in most of the democracies in the world, gathering the highest votes and winning the election is more important than anything else. So who cares about what is actually happening and what is going to happen in another few years if you can make it appear as though you are actually doing something for the masses. Of course nobody would dare to even ponder about such kinds of issues which can arouse the sentiments of the extremely sensitive religious crowd, who knows when they are going to chop your hand off ?!?!?!

Some excerpts from an excellent article written on the same topic. The full story can be read here.


"...People can argue, as they do, that the world could cope with a population of 25 or even 50 billion. Perhaps they are right. What happens when we reach saturation at 50 billion (or 7 billion, or whatever saturation turns out to be) what will make the population stop growing then? The bigger the numbers the faster the growth. Eventually we need birth control or the population will be limited by natural means; starvation, pandemic disease or warfare to secure the means of survival. Imagine a world that has reached saturation, imagine trying to put the brakes on then, when the population is still growing at 5 or 10 every second. A new Calcutta, Cairo or Mexico City every week. It is too frightening to contemplate for long. To stop the growth we need to apply the brakes now, while there is still a chance that we can keep in control.


If we do not want to face mass starvation on a scale never before seen or have a war that will be in every sense the third world war, we have to stop the population from growing the way it is. Madly. Uncontrolled and in all the wrong places. The only fair way is two's your lot. A universal limit of two children per woman, or two children per person if you prefer. It must be universal, no exceptions, especially on religious grounds. It is the Muslim and Catholic communities who are the most dangerous because they believe they have a duty to breed. Let one woman be an exception and she breeds more exceptions.


To make things fair universality is necessary but not sufficient. We must also address why the third world people think they need more children when they are surrounded by underfed and dying children. We must recognize that their decisions are rational, we must change the reality. Children are social security and pensions. We must replace that with real social security. To say the least this will be expensive, compared to the alternative though it is the bargain of all time....


...Ideally I would like to see many people not allowed to breed at all. The poor who live in squalor, ignorance, poverty and disease will breed more of their kind. It does not matter if you believe that genes, environment or conditioning in infancy are the key factors. Dysfunctional families breed dysfunctional people....


....Birth control is always controversial. A formal limit on family size is a profoundly illiberal policy. No democratic politician is likely to see it as a vote winner. However it is very much the better alternative to ecological meltdown, starvation and violence on a scale that can barely be imagined. In contrast reducing the death rate is seen as universally good. That discrepancy is likely to make solving the problem even harder. Western charity is aimed at reducing deaths in poor countries, very little money is spent on birth control. When charities mention birth control they receive less money. So they go on with death control only, making the underlying problem worse.


Sometimes in life the right thing to do is the opposite of your instinctive reaction, like pulling down the houses in your street to save the city from fire. Your feelings that motivate you to care can blind you to the best way to express that care.


Saving a starving child today means having more children in thirty years time trying to live off the same or eroded resources. Saying that makes me seem like a heartless bastard. In many public meetings if I said that from the platform I would be shouted down, and maybe beaten up too. But I am not wrong, call me whatever you want, I am telling it like it is. There is a classic charity tag line that goes something like give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you help feed him for a lifetime. This is incredibly patronizing, as if starving people are surrounded by food they are too stupid to catch. The reality is that if you teach that man how to fish in two generations time there will be a lot more starving people in that same village and no fish. That is human nature. Man will breed and eat all the food available.....


The current charity model is doomed to both fail and make the problem worse. In the twentieth century there was a massive decline in death rates and only a modest fall in birth rates. That is THE PROBLEM. The biggest problem in the world today and it is an aggravating factor in almost every other problem mankind faces. Environmental decline, global warming, habitat loss, the loss of all easily mined metallic ores, the phenomenal rise in fossil fuel consumption; all these are made worse by the fact that in twenty five years time there will be another three thousand million more people alive than there are today.

It is the biggest problem because it makes every other problem worse and harder to solve. It will not be solved by ignoring it. There can be no technological fix that can provide ever growing resources for a population to grow at geometric rates. It cannot be solved by conventional democratic politics. Something radical must be done to get the world to wake up and face reality. "

The last paragraph really hammers the nail into the coffin....it is the biggest problem and it makes every other problem harder to solve. Its high time everybody wakes up, especially India, and stop playing touch and go with such issues....instead of acting like we understand the crazy bullshit that most religions propagate (which pea-brain wouldn't understand simple and obvious concepts like 'evolution' ?!?!?), we should face problems head on, religion and rallies by ignorant, selfish pricks be damned and do something about our own future....its not only the future but also the present.

Just look at this graph. The Chinese population seems to reaching its peak and will soon reach a level growth. Ideal growth patterns would be like UK or Japan, but looks like we Indians are going to have to colonise the moon or Mars in order to make space for us, little wonder the Indian space program is gaining heat !!!

Promises, promises .....

Its been ages since I decided to keep my blog updated and on more than one ocassion I have blogged that I am going to change forever and that things will be a lot more different from now on. Everytime I did put up a post saying tht things will be different, I was also trying to change a lot of other things in my life too. But all those vows were practically only as true as a politician's campaign promise. Well I have wanted to change for a long long time now and it just doesn't seem to work. I have tried every trick in the book, starting with imitating role models, changing behaviour patterns, altering my daily routines, changing my job, shifting my country of residence, gave up, tried again a gazillion times.....and the list goes on......and still I haven't figured the magic secret thats going to revolutionise my life and make me the next Steve Jobs or Richard Branson.

Its not like we don't know what makes a succesful person tick, most of us if given half a chance could easily give a lecture on how to live properly. Most of us our experts in the field of human psychology, many thanks to the reality shows on air, tremendous amount of info available on the net and of course our ever growing hunger for gossip and our passion for seeing every other person's lives around us through the looking glass and trying to figure out what makes them 'do it'. Well this time I am in another one of those famous life-changing phases and this time around I am trying even more harder to completely alter myself.

I was chilling with a few friends at Wadi Hattat yesterday night and we were sitting at a coffee shop with a good view of the road ahead of us. This was in Wadi Hattat 5. A minute ago we drove across a junction in order to get to this coffee shop and a minute later we heard the gruesome sound of metal on metal and a shout. I saw somethin like a big bag flying and landing about 10 metres away and then shifted my attention to the spot where a bicycle had got crumpled by a big white land cruiser. The road was poorly lit and the Landcruiser probably did not see the guy on the cycle trying to cross (or driving on the side of the road, nobody really knows). Whatever the case, it was soon pretty obvious that it was the cyclist who flew and fell in the middle of the road and not a bag or anything. Not a single person was in the vicinity except for a few of us. I was totally stunned for a few minutes and had no idea what to do. 2 Two of my buddies rushed forward without thinking anything, they ran, shouting & screaming, picked up the victim, banged on the land cruiser and made the driver open the back doors. They then told the driver to rush to Khoula Hospital. All this happened in just a few minutes.

Two things that I observed from this incident is the fragile nature of our lives, and the total lack of selfishness on the part of those friends of mine. They did not think about anything other than saving the poor victim, it is truly something commendable, especially for me since I am coming from India where I have seen dire situations where people are are only worried about saving their own asses. Well all this highly influenced me and I have decided to make some concrete, significant changes. Period.

I hate Lotus !!!

Well guys after nearly a decade of not blogging I am trying to break back into blogosphere. I thought I would make it really interesting by starting the new innings with the coverage of the launch of Lotus cars in Oman. Let me be very frank, I was never a big fan of Lotus or in fact of British cars in general especially the ones that started their life in a shed/garage, or as in the case of Lotus in a stable behind a railway hotel !!!! After several owners washed their hands off it, including GM and the owners of Bugatti, guess who owns Lotus now ??......the world-renowned-high-quality-perfomance car manufacturer........The one and only Malaysia based Proton !!!!!!! Yup, WTF is the exact feeling that went through my mind also when I heard this news.

The famous Proton of Malaysia...You will find hundreds of them...but only in Malaysia

Now you may or may not be wondering why I am so anti-Lotus, but to be fair to them I have to tell you the truth, Lotus is a very well acclaimed manufacturer of premium sports 'drivers' cars. They are actually powered by Toyota engines, and unlike the W12, 1 million bhp and 1000.6 litre engines in most sports cars, the Lotus babies have just 1.6 and max to max 1.8 litre Toyota engines in the most premium model. A 1.6 litre Toyota that is going to set you back at least R.O. 20,000 (to put things into perspective let me point out the fact that a Toyota Yaris has a 1.5 litre engine and the old Toyota Echo used to have a 1.3 litre one !! ). These cars are not at all meant for the daily driver. A lot of amenities that most petrolheads in the middle east love are not even on the options list simply because this car is meant to perform on the tracks and not meant for showing off to a lady friend or for a long drive to Salalah (unless you don't mind having a backside that feels like bricks by the time you reach your destination !!).

Another beautiful Proton, the Wira....what a name and what a backside....looks like somebody gave it a sound thrashing !

Well the real reason behind my hatred towards the Lotus brand, other than the facts that they are pathetic looking wannabes and that they are British, is that yesterday was the launch of Lotus in Oman. They organised a media launch inviting the few journos in Oman who knew how to drive a manual and the event was held at the Oman Automobile Association tracks at Seeb. Whichever pea-brain organised this event forgot that Lotus has absolutely no brand following in Oman and most people here don't even know what a Lotus looks like.....and so guess what they did ??? They banned  all public from the event......and not just public.....but hardcore, die-hard, ascertained petrolheads like me and many others were not even allowed inside the premises to even catch a glimpse of the beasts....I really doubt whether they were having a test drive inside or were providing some other 'services' to high net worth individuals in order to cajole them to buy a Lotus or two !!!!!

I was there at the venue even before the organisers were and those nitwits didn't even consider my continued plea for an entry into the place....finally I decided to break in.....did a 360 degree scan of the OAA premises and found a nice little spot where I could jump in and watch the whole show ( 'Prison Break' is really giving me a little too many ideas thats gonna get me into some serious trouble sometime soon !)....

The ROP guys standing guard at the venue....;-) just kidding...just a poor traffic cop...

...well I almost did break in, if not for the fact that the very next property adjacent to the OAA is some buildings belonging to none other than the ROP and the whole place was milling with people in Khakis ( The vehicle registration center and vehicle inspection centres are right next to the OAA plot ). Damn man, I could hear those babies screaming and howling on the tracks and all I could do was fantasize about the lucky privileged basketballs driving them around the tracks.....and guess what ?? as soon as I left the main entrance a 3 ton truck drove into the huge cut-outs placed in the front of venue and tore them apart...hehehe....and the tragedy doesn't end there......it seems that one of the journos who couldn't actually drive a manual drove one of the Lotus onto the tires placed at the sides of the track and broke the car......and he blamed it on the brakes not functioning properly......You deserve it Lotus......for not knowing the fact  that every car that has become a supercar is because a million teenagers have put posters of those cars besides their beds and dreamt about them day and night, and one day when those very same teenagers made it really big, they went and bought those crazy toys which they could not when they were much younger (How else can you explain the crack successes of Hummers and Lambos, and to an extent every supercar on this planet.....they all tickle the inner child within us). So next time if any carmaker wants to assure a good public opinion or at least a good review on this blog, BETTER LET US IN !!!! All I got was a lousy pic of the lights of the events (there were 2 laser beacons that were lit up to make it look more attractive but god knows for what since nobody was invited anyways) from the rear side of OAA.....for the time being guys be satisfied with this......I promise you that there will be an amazing article coming up this friday, post the Red Bull Drift competition....at least those guys know how to market a product well.....Well guys honestly saying Lotus may not be that bad a brand, and all the comparisons that I made earlier to other Toyotas are totally irrelevant as you must have already guessed or known, in the car world, god is in the details, F1 races have been lost just due to different tyre manufacturers !!! So simply comparing a highly engineered product like the Lotus to a Yaris may be unfair...but say what you may what they did was not right, period.

Yup...this is all I could get....obviously I cannot share the sounds of tht nite... so for now this is it !

Another long hiatus

Ok.....I know this is becoming a regular thing now......but this time I think I have gotten over my writer's block and will be in blogosphere for a longer duration than any of the previous blogging spells I have had......and you know why ??....because of a beautiful little plastic document that bears a smiling picture of myself during my college years........my Omani drivers license which I got after a long, hard struggle of 6 months and several trips to the interiors of Oman.....well I finally got my ticket to independence and I am having an absolutely fab time with my cute little company car.......





........thanks to the greatest financial meltdown since 1930's the only ride my company could afford at a moment's notice is a spanking new Kia Rio which they have given me till they sort out my lease agreement and give me a slightly more respectable ride sometime soon inshallah.....but the manual tranny and the peppy engine of the Rio is taking me back to the very basic pleasure and sheer thrills of motoring........throwing the car around the roundabouts and spinning the wheels while at it.......traffic signal drag races.......honking at hala halas ('hala' is arabic for 'hello' and me & my buddies refer to really hot chicks, especially arab ones as 'hala hala' literally translated as 'hi hello' but the implied meaning is 'hi sweetheart , would u like to go to bed with me ?')....the car doesn't look much believe me its a really responsive and enthusisatic ride and highly recommended to beginners learning their ropes around Oman's motorways......and the fuel economy is awesome....just 4 bucks ('bucks' as in 'Rial Omani') will get it tanked to the brim and running for around 500 kms !!!!

Some nice 'hala halas' at the Dubai Air Show (photo courtesy - Gulf News)

So finally my dream of a new kind of blogging has come true.......this blog is going to transform totally into a petrolhead's dream come true and I am going to change myself and my lifestyle along with it........watch this space to know what is actually in store.......