Programming the driverless car for India

In Google’s California campus, the spooky spectacle of driverless cars moving quietly on the road is apparently common. Now Google is letting these cars roam the city streets, and, according to a recent article in the New York Times by Matt Richtel and Conor Dougherty, the cars are not enjoying sharing the road with human drivers.

The article describes how, seeing a pedestrian at a zebra crossing, a self-driving car slowed down, but the car behind it didn’t. The result? The pedestrian was unharmed, but the Google car ‘was hit from behind by a human-driven sedan’.

I smiled. Then, as I read what Donald Norman, an expert on autonomous vehicles, had to say, I chortled aloud: “They (driverless cars) have to learn to be aggressive in the right amount, and the right amount depends on the culture.”

How appropriate it would be for the car to be trained in India, I thought, affectionately reflecting upon our famous driving culture. I imagine being tasked to travel in the driverless car in Chennai (with the ability to take over control at my whim) to figure out what changes are needed in the car’s programming to inculcate an appropriate sense of aggressiveness in it.

I get into the car and input my destination into the map. The car reverses silently into my colony road. When we reach the main road, instead of turning right, the car switches on its indicator and waits. Immediately the driver behind us blares his car’s horn and gesticulates ‘Move, idiot!’ with his arm.

Telling a good story

I’m tired of people in every sphere of life telling me, in voices gushing with excitement, how wonderful the internet is and how it has made life easier in every way. But it has not. Take the subject of party conversations for example. In the halcyon pre-internet era I found it very easy to hold audiences spellbound on topics that I had only a vague knowledge about and others on which I knew nothing.

For example, I clearly remember one dinner I attended in that splendid period before www.something invaded our lives. A few days before the dinner, I had watched a television programme about the meat-eating customs in different countries and was keen to share some insights with my friends.

“In China,” I declared, “they eat frog legs.”

“Wow!” said someone. Others gathered around me to listen, the topic having piqued their interest.

“Yes, they do,” said Ganesh Subramanian with an air of authority. “In Thailand too…”

“They also eat snakes in China.” I said sharply. Having introduced the topic and secured attention, I was not going to let it be hijacked. “In fact, they not only eat snakes, they drink their blood.”

I smiled to myself as Ganesh closed his mouth and others opened theirs. This was obviously something new to all of them.

“They believe the blood is a potent aphrodisiac,” I continued. People drew closer, mouths opened wider and words like ‘Wow!’, ‘Fascinating’ and ‘Disgusting’ were muttered.

Rajnikanth and the Japanese

In Tamil Nadu, we worship our film stars (in many cases literally: by building temples, installing their images as deities and actually conducting pooja). And of course among all the stars we adulate, Rajnikanth has a special place of his own. This macho hero, who can fell twenty rogues with one punch and cause a building to collapse by simply blowing hard on it, is revered in every nook and canny of Tamil Nadu, loved elsewhere in South India and pretty well-known even in the rest of the country. But I always took it for granted that the super star’s popularity, like the big rivers of the country, stopped at the shores of the nation.

“Do you think,” a friend asked me a few years ago, “Rajnikanth has fans outside India?”

I shook my head.

“Well, he does – in Japan!” he said.

“I don’t believe that,” I said. “That’s like telling me the Japanese have suddenly started eating uttapam instead of sushi.”

“They may not have taken to uttapam”, he said, “but they’ve definitely taken to Rajnikanth in a big way. In fact,” he continued when he saw me still looking sceptical, “Rajni’s 1998 film ‘Muthu’ was the first Tamil film to be dubbed into Japanese: it was released under the endearing name of ‘Mutu: Odoru Maharaja’ and it grossed a record $1.6 million in Japan.”

Man's quest for beauty

Man has always been besotted with beauty in his beau. But with the woman moving from kitchen to boardroom, the child becoming more mature – or cheeky – at a younger age and the inanimate object becoming sleeker and technologically advanced, it is only appropriate that man is no longer stuck to this hidebound, restricted notion of beauty. He now desires it for himself.

After writing about this phenomenon (in my usual incisive fashion) last fortnight, I met an old friend Sumit Chatterjee at his club. Chatterjee, careful about his appearance even in college, had become increasingly dapper and well-groomed over the years; therefore I was surprised to see his shaggy look today.

“What happened?” I asked. “Did you lose your razor? Are you waiting for an auspicious day to buy a new one?”

He looked annoyed as he softly ran his fingers around his stubble-bearing cheek and chin.

“I don’t use a razor any longer,” he said coldly. “I use a beard trimmer.”

“That’s not a beard!” I corrected him. “Grow it two more weeks; then call it a beard.”

“I have no intention of calling it a beard,” Chatterjee said. “It’s fashionable stubble. Have you typed ‘Brad Pitt images’ into Google?”

The internet in your face, literally

The mobile phone came into our life several years ago and immediately began to shape it.  No longer did we have to give our spouse an estimate of when we’d be home before we left the office. If our children wandered off in a crowded railway station while we were not looking, we could locate them in an instant. And we could tell our boss that we were stuck in traffic on the way to work when, in fact, we were still at home, preparing to shave. Having shaped our life, the mobile phone then began taking control of it. It became swifter, sleeker and smarter. I’m not sure if we correspondingly became slower, sloppier and stupider, but we definitely became increasingly dependent on it, using it to take pictures, find our way, communicate on email, buy movie tickets, check in for flights, read a book and – every now and then – make a phone call.

Till a couple of years ago, my wife and I used to lament that our teenage daughter spends far too much time on her mobile phone. But now everyone is behaving like her.

The other day I went out for a boys’ night out. The plan was to meet Ravi Bhaskar for a drink and then have dinner with two other college friends. When I got to the bar, Bhaskar was already there, a drink at his side. He was deeply engaged with his smart-phone.

“Hi Ravi,” I said.

“One sec,” he said, head down and fingers scrolling.

“Hi!” he said after a few seconds, looking up briefly before turning to the screen again and flicking feverishly with fingers. “Just checking stock prices.”

A healthy Mediterranean diet

As we sat down at the Mediterranean restaurant, I beamed at my wife.

“Why did I suggest we eat out tonight?” I asked.

“Because you love food?” she said.

“Yes, yes,” I said with a trifle irritation. “But why did I suggest this particular restaurant?”

“Because you love Mediterranean food?”

“That may be true,” I snapped, my good humour vanishing, “but it’s a stupid answer.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I thought it was the obvious answer.”

“It’s so obvious, it’s stupid. When I ask a question like that, I’m not really looking for you to answer it.” Then I shook off my irritation. After all, I thought, my wife had shown previously that she is sometimes not very perceptive. She misses the subtle nuances of conversation.

“Let’s try this again,” I continued with a smile. “Why did I suggest this particular restaurant?”

“I have no idea,” she said and smiled sweetly. “Please tell me.”

Well, she may start slowly, I thought, but she surely picks up the cue fast.

A good reason to laugh

Today many people employ the iPad to start, and sustain, a social conversation. As the host at a party I attended recently pulled out his iPad, the people sitting near him moved over and clustered around him like thirsty deer around a small pond. I walked over too, my curiosity aroused.

“What are you discussing?” I asked.

“Laughter,” said the host, turning to me briefly, “I was showing them something on the subject.”

“Fantastic!” I said, excited that I could casually mention that I write a humour column. It’s usually difficult to bring up this subject because the typical party conversation topic is cricket or politics or that killer combination, the politics within cricket. If someone says, for example, “When Australia put on a spinner in the fifth over, I knew we would win,” I find it a little odd to say, “Same here. And talking of spinners, did you read my article last Saturday about how I missed my flight by acting too clever?”

So when the opportunity was suddenly tossed plumb into the middle of my lap, I was quick to take the cue. “Talking of laughter,” I said smoothly, “did you read my column last week about how the English whinge about everything?”

“No,” said the host, “Where is it posted?”

Brazilian pleasures

In Brazil there are many motels specializing in short-stays that are – how can I put this delicately? – romantic in nature. With alluring names like Swing, Alibi and Absinthe, these establishments offer pleasure-seeking couples a cosy haven far from nosy onlookers, with the right trappings: mirrors on the ceiling, seductive music, subdued lighting and a comfortable bed. (I know all this only through hearsay.)

It was such a romantic setting that Wallace entered on a blazing hot afternoon. As he walked into the motel room, he grunted with satisfaction. Pink curtains were drawn against the bright heat, the bed with red linen looked inviting and air conditioning was keeping the room deliciously cool. Only his companion was missing but she would be here soon. He walked over to the full-length mirror along the wall and liked what he saw.

“You handsome devil!” he said.

The door opened. He turned and took a sharp intake of breath. Rosa was standing just inside the doorway looking gorgeous. He moved towards her.

A few months later, as a direct consequence of this encounter, Wallace and Rosa became the proud parents of six healthy, tail-wagging puppies.

When I read about these new pleasure-motels in Brazil that cater to canine clients, I thought it was a joke because the dogs I’ve known have always been happy to conduct their love-making in the open: the diffident courting with delicate sniffs, the coy back-and-forth interchange (“Should we?”, “Now?”, “Yes!”, “Why not!”) and finally the unbridled action when we, as onlookers, would turn away in embarrassment.

The non-existent benefits of eating less

Do you have a friend you’ve never met and will likely never meet, a friend who doesn’t know you exist? Well, I do: her name is Gina Kolata, she lives in New York and… but wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me backtrack, and tell you first about the perfidy of another friend, Rahul, who I have known since boyhood.

A few days ago, my wife and I met Rahul and his wife for dinner. After we exchanged the usual how-are-you, is-the-back-better and has-it-been-raining-or-what, I got down to business.

“Just because he is a waiter, we shouldn’t keep him waiting,” I said and addressed the good gentleman myself. “For starters, how about a plate of samosas, some paneer tikka masala and papadi chaat?”

“Hello!” said Rahul, “That’s way too much food for the four of us…” – actually I had only ordered for myself – “and on top of that, it’s loaded with calories. Here, let me take over.”

He beckoned the waiter over to his side of the table, instructed him to get a large plate of green salad and while I was still recovering from the shock, dismissed him (“That’ll be all - we’ll give you the mains’ order soon.”) He then turned to me and began a lecture on over-eating, calorie consumption and the evils of fried food.

“I’ve been researching health,” he said. “You should go to this site, www.mayoclinic.org. At your age, Paddy, you should be…”

“I’m the same age as you,” I reminded him. “We went to school together.”

Amul: the invaluable Kurien legacy

Dr Verghese Kurien, the man behind Operation Flood, passed away on 9^th September 2012 at the age of 90. In 1949, Kurien began the transformation of the dairy co-operative model in Anand into a nationwide institution. Thanks largely to him, India is the biggest producer of milk today. Many Indian prime ministers have recognized Kurien’s contributions, from Jawaharlal Nehru who inaugurated the first dairy “factory”, to Lal Bahadur Shastri who made Kurien chairman of the National Dairy Development Board for his “extraordinary and dynamic leadership”, to Manmohan Singh who described him as an icon of India’s cooperative movement and the dairy industry. In 1989, when Dr Kurien was awarded the World Food Prize, its founder Dr Norman Borlaug called him “one of the world’s great agricultural leaders of this century.”

We are all proud of the dairy legacy Dr Kurien has left us. But we’re equally proud of the brand behind that legacy: Amul, which comes from the Sanskrit word amulya, meaning invaluable. Amul was at the heart of the milk movement, being sold in pouches, UHT packs and as solid infant milk food. However, to cater to a largely vegetarian nation that literally drinks milk, Amul expanded to offer products such as cheese, paneer, yoghurt, ice cream and shrikhand. But the product that has caught the fancy of the nation is Amul butter.

Perhaps the brand is so popular because of its mascot, the loveable, wide-eyed girl in polka-dots who introduced us to “utterly butterly Amul” in 1967. Since then, she has appeared on hoardings across the nation posing as a cinema actress (Madhuri Dixit for example), politician, cricketer, villager, artist, wrestler or just herself, and making tongue-in-cheek observations on subjects of topical interest. The nation waits with bated breath for the hoarding to change and reveal what the sassy girl chooses as the next target of her wit (revisit this ad campaign at http://www.amul.com/m/amul-hits).

Grouse to Glee at the Olympics

In a previous column I had written about how the English are using the 2012 Olympics to practise their three favourite sports: complaining, expecting the worst and cursing the authorities. However, the Games proceeded smoothly, bookended by charming opening and closing ceremonies; security was competent; the weather held up by London standards (meaning no more than a few hours of rain each day); and commuters never found it easier to get to work. But most important, Great Britain won medals. And Britons have suddenly switched from “despondency to delight”, according to George Cohen of The New York Times. The Economist contrasts the pre-Olympics pessimism about “bungling bureaucracy; national humiliation (and) rain” changing to elation as “the country crescendoed, like a table of diners singing ‘happy birthday’ in a crowded restaurant”. And in the Financial Times, Lucy Kellaway writes that her earlier pessimism about the Olympics “was the biggest pile of hogwash I’ve ever written” and she wants to “retract every whiny, ill-judged, scaremongering word of it”.

I wondered about my English friend Henry Smith, the die-hard prophet of gloom, who had whinged to me two weeks ago about how the Olympics was making life miserable for the commuter (as “transport is in shambles: subway plans are an utter chaos and the bus services are in absolute disarray”), the small businessman (who could be “prosecuted and fined for using the word ‘Olympics’”) and the hapless construction job-seeker (because “construction jobs were taken up by Lithuanians, Romanians and Czechs”). I called him to find out if he was also singing a different tune.

“Hi Henry,” I said, “How were the Olympics?”

“Great! Superb!” he cried. “Couldn’t be better!” he added to drive the point home.

The Olympic English Grouse

I recently learnt that the three most popular sports in the United Kingdom are football, rugby and tennis.  My first feeling was resentment to see that cricket was missing. This is the country that introduced us to the game and watched us make it a national obsession. How would you feel if the person who introduced you to smoking and watched you climb to 20 cigarettes a day gave up the habit himself?

Then I read that these were the three most popular sports that Brits view, not play. For example, 46% watch football but only 10% play it. 18% watch tennis; only 3% play it. Resentment gave way to curiosity: what sports do Brits actually participate in?

A week later I found the answer in an article by Toby Melville in the New York Times. The top three sports that Brits participate in are: “complaining, expecting the worst and cursing the authorities”. When asked what they feel about the Olympics, Mr Melville reported that Brits “gave answers that included bitter laughter; the words ‘fiasco’, ‘disaster’ and ‘police state’; and detailed explanations of how they usually get to work, how that is no longer possible and how very unhappy that makes them.”

My English friend Henry Smith always whinges about the weather: I thought it was because it’s always raining or drizzling in London when I speak to him. But on reading Mr Melville’s article, I remembered meeting Henry once on a bright, sunny April day; the sky was clear, the air was crisp and cool and, even in the heart of the metropolis, we could hear the chirping of birds.

“Hi Henry!” I cried, “Glorious day, isn’t it?”

“It is sunny now, I suppose,” he admitted with a scowl, “but the forecast for tomorrow is thunderstorms in the afternoon. And this is after three rotten days of rain last week! On Tuesday, I was trying to…”

Squinting in the afternoon sun, he described the inconveniences caused by last week’s wet weather.

From icons to relics

Imagine we were back in the 1980s and you asked me to offer odds if you bet that the Ambassador would disappear from India’s roads.

“A hundred to one,” I would have said, laughing heartily.

At that time, one couldn’t think of India without the Ambassador, a vehicle that had ruled our roads for half a century. If owning a car itself was a luxury, owning an Ambassador – the vehicle used by ministers and secretaries, commissioners and generals, executives and tycoons – was an unabashed statement of wealth and prestige. If you were lucky to be born into an Ambassador-owning family, you probably rode the same car to kindergarten, high school and college. Thrift, that majestic Indian virtue, did not reduce with wealth. If anything, the rich had more possessions to practise frugality, using their toothbrush even after its bristles were puffed out like broccoli and employing the same refrigerator for two decades (hopefully changing the food inside more frequently). The Ambassador, with a sturdy engine sitting in a bulbous body of steel, was built for endurance (if for little else). Repairs were cheaply carried out by hundreds of roadside mechanics using inexpensive – if somewhat dubious – spare parts.

But you’d have won the bet. Today the Ambassador is a non-entity. 7,500 Ambassadors were sold in 2009, less than 0.5% of the 1.8 million car market (Honda sells 5,000 City cars every month).

Finding Church Bollywood

I was surprised to read in The New York Times recently that many Indian tourists are visiting Switzerland, accounting for 325,000 hotel nights annually. The article opened with the story of a couple from Mumbai travelling there for their honeymoon.

Switzerland is of course an age-old tourist destination. People flock there to breathe the clear cold air, soak in the beauty of its pristine mountains and gaze at the majestic banks holding much of the world’s not-so-pristine money. Skiing enthusiasts zoom down Switzerland’s snow-laden hills for a week and rave about it for a year. Food lovers dig into popular Swiss dishes like sauerkraut and fondue.

But these don’t appear to be attractions that would attract Indians. The prospect of a cold holiday – rendered colder by sliding down mountains at high speed – leaves us cold. If we want to see buildings that are stacked with cold, hard cash, we can walk along Juhu in Mumbai or Raj Path in Delhi. As far as food is concerned, we’re unlikely to be enticed by sauerkraut and fondue; when we travel abroad, we carry our own food (along with utensils to cook it). And we can simply appreciate the beauty of Switzerland’s mountains and gardens by watching a Bollywood movie.

How to buy a tennis racquet

I found playing tennis much easier twenty years ago. If you’re thinking, “This fellow was likely in his twenties twenty years ago; he must’ve found everything – including walking and breathing – easier then,” you’re right. But it’s not just running and hitting the ball that I find more difficult – it’s coping with the advances in technology that have invaded the game.
 

Twenty years ago, I would buy a tennis racquet in ten minutes. The shopkeeper would show me a couple of Dunlop models (in wood); I’d choose one and tell him my grip size. Things are vastly different today. I recently went to a large sporting shop to buy a new tennis racquet. I found at least five major brands, each made of different material, with varying head sizes. They were also different in weight and how this weight was distributed. I had to not only examine light and heavy racquets but also light ones that were head-heavy and heavy ones that were head-light. The salesman, true to form, was not able to offer any help except to suggest that I research the internet.

So I returned home and did this. “Choosing a tennis racquet,” I typed into Google and pursued the first hit. According to tennis-warehouse.com, I needed to consider Head Size, Length, Weight and Balance, Frame Stiffness, String Pattern and Grip/Handle Systems. I didn’t know where to start. Even buying an aeroplane wouldn’t involve as many factors, I thought.