Novartis: Confusing R&D with Patent Trolling, marketing with FUD, and justice with "my ball, my rules" aka polite-bullying

Oh, and it is not even their ball. Maybe that is the best form of bullying. It is like me telling Rahul Gandhi to return the 2 Lakh Rupees he owns me since the last 5 years. Or else....

At least that is what the Indian legal system told them.

Maybe I am a bit harsh on the marketing/FUD part, but who cares as long it makes for a cool-sounding but rather long heading? Long headings <--> credibility!

The whole thing has been documented in our newspapers, like the Hindu and the Indian Express, even with timelines and all, so its better I take to rant-mode sooner rather than explaining the whole thing.

For what its worth, the term Big Pharma will sound similar to the term Protection Racket to me for some time.

The judgement

It is very easy to go on and criticise our system, the polity, the electricity dudes, the TV channels, the bureaucracy, the traffic police, (my favorite) the IRCTC website, the neighbor's dog, pretty much everybody. And our judiciary too.  But have a look (or just see the headings on different pages) at the 112 pages long judgement in this case (something I have not been able to do, its beyond my capabilities I think), and maybe, like me, you will feel good about it.

I think its fair that I did not read the judgement in its entirety, because I did not read the patent applications either. And I am sure neither did the owners of Novartis.

It is not an isolated case. The SC's recent bashings of Punjab and Bihar state governments against unnecessary force against a young woman and agitating teachers respectively, and another ongoing issue in the court against the use of police as security for petty politicians, some even with a criminal past is appreciable too. As far as looking at the Supreme court goes, we are living in interesting times.

From the internet and the newspapers, it looks like our SC took a broad perspective and provided the Novartis judgement on the ground of the latest application being a case for evergreening. Another aspect was scolding them for expecting a favorable decision just because they had a well drafted appeal and all.

Looks like there is hope for infrequent, grammatically-and-politically-incorrect writers like me, after all. If only I could lay my hands on a law degree...

Elsewhere

So, turns out patent trolling is not something that only Big Pharma deals in. It happens in lots of other fields.

Software is one of such fields. And one of the motivations for me writing this post (apart from other bloggers, SethTheWizKid and I-HEARD-YOU, and some friends telling me to write, overtly and covertly) was a recent post by Joel Spolsky, on the issue of trolling in software patents. This post by Joel was widely discussed on hackernews.

There is a company called Rackspace that is fighting against a patent troll. You might want to read their declaration of war on their blog, and another story elsewhere regarding the same troll's head, some Erich guy.

The above text aside, what surprises me is the overall pattern that rich (or soon-to-be-rich) people follow in bullying others is the same, more or less.

Novartis, and profits, and the need for bullying, almost in the same order

What I lack in economic knowhow, I am gonna make up in terms of fun that I have while writing.

Getting to basics of any kind of business, business is nothing but the process of doing something for others, or fulfilling a need, and expecting them to pay you for it. Some would call it the art of doing something that was not required, or fulfilling a need that was not a need in the first place, and then expecting others to pay you for it.

Doing something or fulfilling some need is not as simple as a YES or NO thing. It has two other aspects in my opinion, how important it is in the opinion of the user, and how important it is in reality. Which is which does not really matter, what matters is that both the aspects boil down to essentially one thing: desperation. 

The thing about the importance of something is that it is not a one-way thing, unless it is. Which turns out to be mostly. I might be desperate for getting people to my blog via advertising, but I am not desperate enough to pay for advertisements. So, no go, advertisements. But what if I have a bet with a friend about getting to, say, 10,000 views? My desperation will get a bit real. What if somehow I wind up jobless and hopeless, and the only way to get going is to make money from this blog? Now we are talking!

What you will pay for something, or whether you will pay at all, depends on how desperate you are for that thing.

Another desperation example: if a random dude had a hundred bucks, and he wanted to buy some chocolate, he would use some of the money. But if he had to walk a mile just to buy chocolate, he might not do it. This is because his desperation in this case is offset by the fact that he would have to walk a mile. But if he had a girlfriend and she wanted a chocolate, and he did not have any money, and the nearest shop or store was 10 miles away, he think he would crawl to the place and loot the shop/store and crawl back. Not the best example, but you get the point.

What happens if we were to up the stakes? What if it was a life and death matter for a near family member, and you were told that taking some magical pill might save them? Most people will do anything to get that pill and save that family member. That is where Big Pharma, or in this case, Novartis comes in, their superpower being your desperation!

There are very high chances that your family member can survive if you are willing to shell out a lot of money for them, to Novartis. A great company that works its ass off day in, day out, for the sake of the sick people in the world. But wait, if they really were that serious, they could have decreased the costs for their medicines. Looks like they are more desperate for money than most of us are for our lives.

What do you do to ensure that you have profits? Simple, make sure others cannot rip you off. We have something called patent law for that. This law means 2 things:

1. for 20 years, no one can copy your thing and make profit for it, unless,

2. they have (written?) permission from you.

This is necessary to make sure that the innovators get their due. But, the 20 years thing means that will only happen for a fixed time, and then it is a kind of free for all. Since Novartis is more desperate for money than you are for your family member's life (shame on you), they will do anything and everything to make sure they have the selling rights in exclusivity, even after the time limit.

How do you get a patent on something that you had patented a few years back? Simple. Show that the something you have now is better than the one before. For this, part (d) in Section 3 of Chapter II of the (Indian) Patents Act, 1970 reads something like the following:

3. What are not inventions? The following are not inventions within the meaning of this Act

.......... 

(d) the mere discovery of a new form of a known substance which does not result in the enhancement of the known efficacy of that substance or the mere discovery of any new property or new use for a known substance or of the mere use of a known process, machine or apparatus unless such known process results in a new product or employs at least one new reactant.

Explanation. For the purposes of this clause, salts, esters, ethers, polymorphs, metabolites, pure form, particle size, isomers, mixtures of isomers, complexes, combinations and other derivatives of known substance shall be considered to be the same substance, unless they differ significantly in properties with regard to efficacy;

The last paragraph kind of kills it for the purpose of evergreening by Novartis and Big Pharma in general. But wait, why would Novartis want to evergreen its patent on this medicine? The reason is the big generic drug industry in India, which caters not only to Indians, but to others too in the subcontinent and more importantly, Africa. One of these companies, Cipla, has been working really well in this aim of reaching to everybody (for profit of course). According to wikipedia, in 2001, when they reduced the cost of their AIDS medicine to $350 per patient per month, they led the the International Aids Society to state after a decade:

Cipla’s dramatic price reduction, which received widespread media attention, hammered the message home that many of the multinational drug companies were abusing their market monopoly in the face of a catastrophic human disaster.

(Too bad the wikipedia reference to that page returns a 404)

So, the second problem in the Big Pharma model, after the evergreening one is the urge to serve only a few people with expensive drugs rather than everyone with cheap drugs. What difference does it make? Well, no apparent difference. You can serve one person for $100, or 10 persons for $10 each, or 100 people for $1 each.

The real reason is that big multinationals drive on scarcity, and desperation. Except that after the time limit of 20 years, this option leaves itself out. I am sure you have heard/read the following- We did all we could, spent every last dime on his/her treatment, but to no avail.

Now to the need for bullying. Novartis India CEO saying something on the lines of No multinational drugs company is going to invest in India, you are all gonna die like dogs, you are all doomed, hahahahaha is, in its simplest form, bullying. (I don't think I get a copyright on stating his words in the simplest form, do I?)

This statement, whatever it was (I don't feel like quoting it exactly), is nothing but telling us to suck it up and just do what they want us to do, in terms of innovation and judging and our buying choices etc. Such statements are like poison to people suffering from rare forms of diseases who are normally told by doctors about a new drug in testing phase. And, our record as a nation on clinical trials is not very good, but the Supreme Court is working on that too, and more importantly, making the respective ministries work on that too.

(By the way, there is this great book, called Big Pharma, that I will read someday)

Who stands to benefit?

Something I learnt after working for a while, was that companies have three groups of people: owners/shareholders, management/employees and customers/clients. (Considering outsourcing as employees only)

Companies' allegiances lie only with the owners/shareholders. I don't think it is fair enough, but that is what happens. In this aspect, pharma companies are a bit good, with the concept of sweat equity and all.

But the problem is the only people who will benefit from the evergreening fad are the owners, when it should have been a case of patients benifitting from the drugs. If Novartis wants so much money, they should really try the recreational drug market!

Another party that really benefitted was the lawyers, but I saw how Jolly got beat up by other lawyers, so I am not gonna say anything about them. :-)

Wrapping up

The fun of writing on Novartis has now given way to boredom, so, here are a few points that I would like to write before I go on and do something else.

1. Novartis, and all big western multinational pharma companies are evil.
2. The need greed for generating more money is more important to them than the lives of the people their drugs can save.
3. Somehow, these companies find ways of overestimating their investment and therefore making the costs for drugs skyrocket. Examples include showing marketing expenses as genuine R&D expenses.
4. What is it with the time required to produce a drug? Is it really 10-15 years? How much is it excluding marketing? Also excluding the initial, no-research, only documentation phases etc.?
5. India is not the only such nation, Indonesia is too. And I am sure others will follow.
6. All big companies, irrespective of their field or lobby-ability must remember that India is a sovereign socialist secular democratic republic, and that at least in the near future (40-50 years), we are going to take a left-of-centre approach on most issues.
7. Getting your management officials to say silly things does not really change anything. Ditto for your silly organisations in US or elsewhere.
8. If you are so good at lobbying and R&D at the same time, you should try getting the government to change the patent law, and get a patent for testosterone occurring in its natural form. That way you might be able to control the whole world in terms of reproduction. And countries like India, with so many people and growing will be like little kittens in your hands.
9. Maybe it is their drugs talking, but Novartis seems to have forgotten a basic business thing: if you won't provide something people want, someone else will. So, cry all you want, some other (preferably not similar to you) company will fill the void that you leave after you move out from India. Or, you will not move out, because we are such a huge fricking market!

To Novartis: this was me having some fun at your expense. If you feel this was not the best thing to do at my (a random person's) part, you have got bigger problems than patent issues and all. If you do not like it, please consider changing your tactics. I hope you won't sue me, but if you do, remember that I am kind of bankrupt. 

Also, if you intend to keep on with these silly, over the top court cases, consider providing a free medicine for vomiting, at least to me :-) :-)

In any case, remember that you are serving the market, it is NOT the other way around.

Feel free to have me as a researcher or a lawyer or a marketing professional or as a strategic guru. Then maybe we can delete this post :D

Cheers!

Best online reading, circa March 2013

Due to some problems with me not being able to focus on other idle things like TV and games and Rebol etc., I have decided to read around the internet. And to write a bit while I'm at it, in part because my friends Vineet Malhotra and Nitesh Goyal think its a good way to spend time. And what better way to write more than to rip off other people's content!

Here are some of the best websites or pages that I have had the chance to pass through until March, 2013. Listing them for personal reference, and (sometimes) to push in the face of other people. Not you. Other people. Not for any particular reason.

In case you decide to actually read all of this stuff, (1) you will find that I value intelligence, insight and humor, in the reverse order, and, (2) you are more idle than you probably should be. Btw, the order of the below listed posts does not matter. And it is not exhaustive by any means.

You might want to keep in mind that these are the things I liked from these people, and that their blogs/websites/whatevers are a lot broader than my perspective on them.

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Fire and Motion, by Joel Spolsky.

 Joel has written a lot, but I were to select a single post, this would be it. Not only from a software point of view. I like drawing inter-disciplinary generalizations, and watching others do it. I wonder where I would be if I had read this 10 years before. Would love to simply copy-and-paste and quote the whole post here, but what the hell. (Also see the discussion)

When I was an Israeli paratrooper a general stopped by to give us a little speech about strategy. In infantry battles, he told us, there is only one strategy: Fire and Motion. You move towards the enemy while firing your weapon. The firing forces him to keep his head down so he can't fire at you. (That's what the soldiers mean when they shout "cover me." It means, "fire at our enemy so he has to duck and can't fire at me while I run across this street, here." It works.)  The motion allows you to conquer territory and get closer to your enemy, where your shots are much more likely to hit their target. If you're not moving, the enemy gets to decide what happens, which is not a good thing. If you're not firing, the enemy will fire at you, pinning you down.

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Things I learnt as a kid, by Douglas Crockford. 

So you know he is the inventor of JavaScript and JSON, and mentioned Rebol as a good programming language a few times and as an inspiration for JSON, but what makes this post great is the honesty with which he shows the innocence of his childhood. Every idiot can remember the one special incident, but I guess (I can only guess), it takes some deep reflection to remember it all and to publish it online.

When a person is drowning, particularly a non-swimmer, they will come up to the surface exactly three times before they die. It is not uncommon for the victim to count to three on his fingers as he is drowning.

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On the move, by Philip Guo. 

I have spent my childhood in different places within India. In fact, until I was 14, I had not stayed at a single place for more than 4 years, and not more than 3 years if you exclude one. Spending one's childhood at a single place, with a single set of friends is something I would want for everybody to have. Not that I am against broadening one's horizons, just that childhood should be simple in my opinion.

The following quote contains emotions that I had too had to face in 1993 (or 1994), 1997, 2000 and 2004 (we moved in 1990/91 but I was too young then), not for the same reason as Philip, but because my parents moved a lot due to my dad's job and because I spent four years at a boarding school. Funny thing is, I am again going to have to move somewhere else in a few months, but I have grown now. Another funny thing is that sometimes I feel pity for people (however young) who have spent their lives in a single place.

At the time, though, I was unhappy, but my parents did not give me a choice. When I told my friends that I was going to skip to fifth grade, they felt genuinely upset and betrayed that I was leaving them. Some of my friends pleaded me not to go, and I was touched by their sincere loyalty. It was the first time that I felt like I was abandoning people I had grown up with; this group of friends was the first that I had remained close to for more than two years, which was a long time by my childhood standards.

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xkcd by Randall Monroe

I cannot possibly define what xkcd is, and the about page is a bit too big for such a small (per post), and funny website.  Gonna let a pic tell you all about it.

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Travels with Samantha by Philip Greenspun

First of all, Samantha here is not a lady, or a human, or even a dog, for that matter. (thats how I rouse your curiosity). I love the way Philip writes about computer science, travel, photography, writing and many other things without any change in the intensity and comedy. Here is a very funny quote on writing, the funny part being that there is no funny thing in the quote and you will end up feeling mentally tortured.

"Never go off on tangents, which are lines that intersect a curve at only one point and were discovered by Euclid, who lived in the 3rd century B.C., which was the end of the Middle Formative Period in Meso-America, where many principal sites of settlement were in the area that we now know as Belize, a common destination for SCUBA-diving tourists." -- Mostly me (Philip) 

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Teach Yourself Programming in 10 Years by Peter Norvig

Another one of literary resources I wished I had access to 10 years before today. Meant for programmers, and anyone who works in a field that requires any kind of skill, that is, all fields. A farm labourer might want to decrease his/her time and effort for maximum profit etc. I bet everyone can read it and learn a bit about being world class in their respective field. The quote that I am mentioning here is a not a programming related one, and it is a pity since the page literally is a treasure of intelligent things about getting better at programming.

So it may be that 10,000 hours, not 10 years, is the magic number. (Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) said "Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst," but he shot more than one an hour.) Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) thought it took even longer: "Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price." And Chaucer (1340-1400) complained "the lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne." Hippocrates (c. 400BC) is known for the excerpt "ars longa, vita brevis", which is part of the longer quotation "Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile", which in English renders as "Life is short, [the] craft long, opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment difficult." Although in Latin, ars can mean either art or craft, in the original Greek the word "techne" can only mean "skill", not "art".

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The Tragedy of being 25+ in an Indian BSchool  by Siddhesh Agashe

This post was introduced to my by an email from my good and crazy friend Ankit Gupta sometime in late 2010. A great post, and an even greater blog. Comedy and making fun of MBA types, by an MBA student himself is something that will always make me feel funny. Again, selecting a single quote proved very difficult :-) But jokes apart, reading his blog and (a coworker from my first company) Arpit Rastogi's blog made me feel like I should write a blog myself.

99.99% of the 5% girls of your age would already be committed, married or engaged. The balance 0.01% are single because of a reason. (Use your own judgment to guess why. I refrain from making any racist/sexist/biased comments on my blog) 

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Giant Robot Dinosaur (fakegrimlock)

I don't really know what to write about fakegrimlock. I follow him on twitter, and love the way he writes/speaks. His insistence on using all caps and (intentionally) disfigured grammar makes him irresistible  Quoting his "about" thing:

HERE IMPORTANT FACTS:

1. ME HERE TO HELP WORLD BE LESS STUPID, MORE AWESOME.

2. WHY TALK THIS WAY? BECAUSE AWESOME!

3. GRIMLOCK POWERED BY COFFEE, BEER, BACON, HUMANS. ALL DELICIOUS.

4. WHO REALLY GRIMLOCK? ME AM!

THAT IT. FOLLOW ME, GRIMLOCK, ON TWITTER IF NEED KNOW MORE THINGS.

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How to do what you Love by Paul Graham

From a blog about tech startups and analysis of the overall tech industry, here is a general post meant for children that I think is relevant for everyone. From reading his blog, all my future (personal) decisions will be scrutinized under the lens of the way Paul seems to think.

It was not till I was in college that the idea of work finally broke free from the idea of making a living. Then the important question became not how to make money, but what to work on. Ideally these coincided, but some spectacular boundary cases (like Einstein in the patent office) proved they weren't identical. 

The Anatomy of Determination by (again) Paul Graham

There is a lot of research on what makes people successful and all, but this is the simplest thing I have ever seen on the topic. Don't let the investor-startup-money-talent things fool you. This is universal. And did I not mention I just love triangular simplifications of things?

In most domains, talent is overrated compared to determination—partly because it makes a better story, partly because it gives onlookers an excuse for being lazy, and partly because after a while determination starts to look like talent.

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The Secret Footballer

This one is an anonymous blog on the Guardian's website, and anyone who has had the desire to be a professional footballer in the big leagues someday would read it and thank themselves that they are just wannabes in that regard. At least I do so. But good time pass value for me :-)

Within most squads there are now two schools: those who feel they ought to have an iPhone and those who prefer the style and layout of a Blackberry. The two are easily defined by match-day etiquette – the ones who are more image conscious generally arrive at the players' entrance with hair made up, shoes sparkling, iPhone firmly fixed to their ear and designer wash bag under arm. Interestingly, most defenders seem to fall into the Blackberry category. But in this instance both devices perform the same task.

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(Inspired by Brian "HostileFork" Dickens' Software Engineering Quotes)

What Rebol means to me

This is not a programming related post. It is a programmer-related, people-related post, but not a programming related post.

Instead of a well thought post, this one is just a 10 minute memory dump. :-)

Just a few days back, I was fooling around the different chat rooms at stackoverflow chat. As anyone familiar with SO chat will tell you, there are (online) rooms where SO users can talk about programming and whatnot.

I saw a room named "Rebol-and-Red" and thought the name was funny. Like the names of two people who are having a room for themselves... in SO terms, room for Rebol and Red. Without any apparent reason, I entered the room and started reading what the people there were writing.

I kid you not, within about 20 seconds, someone said "Hi, @KK."

So, I responded. This person started telling me about Rebol and how it relates to other languages we use, like LISP and C etc. And since it is a very small language download, this person made me download it and walked me through simple commands on the interpreter. A few other people, frequents in the room, jumped in the discussion. I liked the attention that I was getting from better, older, better, mature, better  programmers.

Later in the evening that day, I again went to this room. Again the same. Then the next day. One more day. Another day.

Rebol is an odd programming language, but what made me stick to it was the great, ultra-friendly, noob-helping community. You did not get yelled at for asking a silly question, or for asking a silly question 2 times, or n times. :-)

Another thing I liked about it is the variety of people that I met in the Rebol room. Apparently, Brian "hostilefork" Dickens is a very cool person who will do anything in his power to help make Rebol a more accepted language. Graham Chiu is a doctor who treats Rebol like this motorcycle one maintains after work. Then there are the core implementors for Rebol: Christopher Ross-Gill (see his all-purpose utility scripts), BrianH, Andreas "earl" Bolka, Sunanda, Ladislav, and programmers all between the spectrum, like Adrian Sampaleanu, Jina, Randall "somekittens" Koutnik, MaxV, Benjamin Gruenbaum, Petr Krenzelok (pekr), Rebolek and a bot called Rebolbot, made by Dr. Chiu. Nenad Rakocevic, who goes by the name dockimbel works on a compiled Rebol-like language called Red. Peter WA Wood also hangs in the room sometimes, and he is one of the core implementors of Red.

I love chatting with these guys, and use a bit of rebol, only as a hobby. Lets see how long this affair with Rebol goes, but as long as I am with it, I love it.

I am indebted to these great people for their help and insights in making me get familiar to Rebol, and even more thankful for the jokes and other non-Rebol talk that we share in the Rebol room.

To anyone I did not mention or mentioned incorrectly, feel free to come to Mohali/Kharar, India and smack me in the head :-)

SSC CGL 2012 Interview

I have not written anything in a long time. This seems weird.

Anyways, it is 20th December, and I must say: Happy Birthday Neeru Masi!

I had my SSC CGL Interview today at Chandigarh, and thought would write about it since
1. It went better than I expected, and
2. I could not find a lot of those from other candidates.

So me and my friend Pankaj Beniwal had our interviews together, same day same time. I guess it saved us both a lot of boredom and awkwardness (thanks, spell check!), though talking to other candidates is good too. Feels nice to meet others just like you. And not to mention the variety  of people, in almost every sense of the word.

Pankaj knows about the almost. In other words, great if you are girl and want guys hitting on you. :)

Preliminaries
We reached the Central Govt. Offices in Sector-9, Chandigarh at around 8:25 am.After signing the attendance etc., we just sat around the last seats for about an hour (that passed in about 5 minutes cause we are friends from college). Then an official came and started instructing us. On paying attention we found that the instructions  were nothing but a repetition of the documents that we were required to bring. We did not have photocopies of our identity forms, and had to get it done at their office photocopying machine.

After that we came back and waited till another hour or two before we were called for document verification. In the meantime, people were being called for their interview.

It was time spent having half-philosophical, half-jackass-ish discussions, and no attention whatsoever to what might be asked in the interview itself.

Interview
It must be around 11:15 am, when an official came and summoned Pankaj for his interview. I just told him to go there and give em hell.

Then I started talking to a Sikh gentleman who was originally from Muktsar, who turned out to be working in the Ministry of Labour, and I must say I enjoyed it. We talked about the work that he did, and the highlight was why he could not get his department to provide leave to him.

Then Pankaj came back. He told that the interviewers were asking about recent news and football and some other things. Way to kill a mood.

We all talked for some more time. Then I was summoned.

The waiting
I went in, and was greeted by another candidate, who had another panel. And much like a cricket test match, his panel had been on tea-break since the last hour.

We chatted for a few minutes, and then a bell rang and I was called for interview.

The actual interview
Ok. So I went inside, and there was a small room. Like the Matrix trilogy, this room had 2 more doors at the end, and I was told to go inside the one at the left.

As I entered, I was greeted by a 3-member panel, consisting of 2 Sikh gentlemen, one a bit old (M1), and the other in his late 30s/early 40s (M3). The third member was a lady (M2).

I wished them good morning, even though it was past noon, or almost noon. Whatever.

The older Sikh gentleman, sitting in the middle started the interview. For the most part (70-80%), the interview was in Hindi. Jai Hind! (Bad parts in italics)



M1: So, Kaushal ji, why are you leaving your current job? Is it not a good job?
Me: Sir, I have already been selected in FCI...

M1: F-what?
Me: Sir, Food Corporation Of India.

M1: So you think this job (meaning the current interview) is better than that?
Me: Yes, sir.

M1: So, Karunesh ji, aap newspaper to read karte he honge? Aur zahir hai TV bhi dekhte honge?
Me: Yes sir.

M1: So tell me what do you watch on TV?
Me: Sir, I watch football on weekends.

M1: Do you watch something else too?
Me: Yes, sir. Sometimes when I am free, I like to watch movies on TV.

M1: So tell me about the latest movie that you watched.
Me: Sir, Screamers.

M1: Ok. Who is your favorite actor?
Me: Sir, I do not have a favorite actor as such. 

M1: How is this possible? There must be one.
Me: Ok sir. It is Shah Rukh Khan.

M1: And there must be a favorite actress.
Me: Let me think sir. It is Preity Zinta.

[THANK GOD they did not ask why I liked these guys] 

M1: Why is she not coming in too many movies now-a-days?
Me: Sir, I do not know. [He smiled] I add: Sir, unhone mujhe to nahi bataya! :)

[All laugh]

M1: Karunesh ji, tell me the number of states in India which have female Chief Ministers.
Me: [Confidently] Sir, 3.

M1: Ok. Tell me the states.
Me: Sir, firstly Tamil Nadu, and Ms. Jayalalitha.

M1: Correct. And?
Me: Sir, UP, and Ms. Mayawati.

M1: No. She was.
Me: Ok sir. In that case sir, my other state is also wrong. Ms. Raje was the Chief Minister of Rajasthan.

M1: Yes. Who is the current CM of Rajasthan?
Me: Sir, it is Mr. Ashok Geholt.

M1: Ok. Now go to the east of  India. Can you remember something?
Me: Yes, sir. Ms. Mamata Bannerjee is the CM of West Bangal.

M1: Ok. Now come back. Near UP.
Me: Yes, sir. Ms. Shiela Dixit is the CM of New Delhi.

M1: Good. So, Karunesh ji, can you tell me a few things about what is happening in the world right now?
Me: Yes sir. Currently I can think of 2-3 things. First of all, there is the problem in Nepal.

M1: Yes.
Me: Sir, the problem is that they had created a Constitutional Assembly, and they had set a deadline for its working. The problem is that it could not complete the constitution in the stipulated time, and there was no provision in the Assembly's work or otherwise that could guide the way the work could further go forward. [Thanks Pankaj!]. Therefore, the different parties are not able to arrive at an "ekmat" (love Hindi) at the moment, and hence the chaos.
           Then sir, North Koreans just tested what was meant to be a nuclear capable missile launcher with a weather satellite. [He nods]. And elections in Japan have resulted in the winning of Mr. Shinzo Abe led Liberal Democratic Party. He will most likely be the new Prime Minister, and he was also the Prime Minister in 2007.

M1: [Nodding] There has also been an incidence in America [implying USA].
Me: Yes, sir. Near the city of Connecticut [Nod], there has been an incident involving the shooting of 27 people, 20 of whom were children.

M1: Good. So, you watch football. Who is your favorite footballer?
Me: Sir, I love watching Jonas Gutierrez play. He plays for Argentina, and played in the 2010 World Cup. Also, he plays for Newcastle United in the Barclays Premier League.

M1: All right. You like John Gutierro.. and he plays for Newcassa United...[at least he tried]. Have you heard about Thierry Henry?
Me: Yes, sir. He was a very good French striker. In his best days, he played for Arsenal and Barcelona.

M1: Who is your favorite Indian footballer?
Me: [I really did not know what to say I started mumbling].

M1: There is Jarnail Singh, ___ ___ ___ ( a few Bengali names).. 
Me: [Still clueless]

M1: Ok. Who was the captain at the time we won the Asian Games Football Gold in 1962?
Me: I am sorry sir, I do not know. [I should have known]

M1: No worries, it was ___ (Bengali name)
Me: Ok sir. [I feel ashamed that after only 6-7 hours I have forgotton]

M1: [nodding towards M2] You can ask, mam.

M2: What is a barometer:
Me: Mam, it is a device that tests air pressure.

M2: What is the unit of pressure:
Me: Mam, I do not know. [It was pascal. WTF?]

M2: What are endocrine glands?
Me: Mam, these are hormone-secreting glands that inject hormones directly into the blood supply, from where it acts at the target organs.

M2: Which organ produces Bile Juices?
Me: Its the liver, mam. [Thanks, jaundice in college!]

M2: What is insulin?
Me: Mam, it is a hormone produced in the pancreas. If the body is not able to synthesize it, the result is diabetes.

[M2 then asked 4-5 more questions, all of which I answered. Maybe except 1, but I do not think so]

... Then it was M3's turn. I do not remember the exact order of his questions.

M3: What are Pascal, Fortran and Cobol etc.?
Me: Sir, these are Computer Languages, rather programming languages.

M3: [Nodding] Are they used now?
Me: Sir, they are not used now for new projects. But there are a lot of legacy projects that make use of Cobol and Fortran. [I felt compelled to tell him about phone calls, ATMs etc., but decided in favour of being to-the-point]

M3: Have you heard about the recent Apple-Samsung controversy?
Me: Yes sir. Basically, Apple first created its iOS-based line of smartphones. Then Samsung also entered the smartphone market with products similar to Apple's, and I think both overstepped their boundaries. Samsung copied the look and feel of Apple's phones and Apple sued them for very minor things like having rounded corners in rectangular phone frames.

M3: What is Android?
Me: Sir, it is a smartphone operating system. The Samsung phones we were talking about just now run on Android.

M3: What is the latest version of Android?
Me: Sir, I do not remember the latest version.

M3: Do you remember any versions?
Me: Yes sir, there is Marmalade, Jelly Bean..Thats all I know sir.

M3: [Nodding] Ok.

M1: Ok, Karunesh ji, you may leave.

I pick my things, wish them, and come back.

The fatak wala sardar

Sometimes I feel too stressed to even think. No matter what, the eternal optimist in me too fades away sometimes, and with it goes my ability to think 'don't worry, things'll be fine soon.' Why I feel this way, or not feel any other way is not the matter of this post.

I went to Khanna with my family to visit an aunt today, and had a strange experience. When I say strange, I do not mean strange as in weird or life-changing or anything, but strange in the way it made me think about what I've been thinking. That takes me to what I've been thinking lately, and it turns out that I've been worrying way too much, almost beyond the limit of worrying without any cause, if there is one. There are a lot of things can make me mad, but playing into the thought patterns that these things put you into is a bit too idiotic for me. Or seems now in retrospect when I am writing this post.

As we reached my Aunt's home, I came to know that a railway line passes from near their home, and that a lot many trains pass from there everyday. The lot many part is whats responsible for this post. That, and the fact that I am very much a train freak. I just love traveling by, talking about, looking at, and (sometimes) simply thinking about trains. So I just had to go to the rail lines and see one or two of them pass by. And that too just about 300-350 yards. As I am about to go there, my uncle (Masser-ji, in Punjabi) tells me that he too will accompany me, and then my brother and my aunt's younger son too join us.

As we move towards the lines, uncle-ji tells us about a railway crossing nearby. So I persuade everyone we move towards the crossing to.... I don't know, just because I wanted to.

Reaching there, I ask/talk about the kinds of trains that pass from there, the number of trains passing from there in a day etc. we wait for about 15-20 minutes when a train comes and goes, and in about five more minutes, masser-ji tells us, another will pass. I get more excited, with the first four words in this line seeming utterly idiotic to me now.

Like all things in this post, without any reason I propose we all go to the crossing manning guy, whatever he's called, fatak-wala banda to me at least. The others stood outside talking, while I go into the small room containing his stuff, a roster for the trains' timings, all sorts of equipment (which he later told me was almost never used), and a clock that didn't seemed to work since the time we have railway crossings in this world! The man, a sardar turned out to be a very warm and cordial person.

As I talk to him about trains, the way he gets to know when to pull the levers, the way railway signals work etc., a train comes and goes, and (this had to happen at some time) the others get bored and tell me they are going home. I ask the guy about the next train, and he tells me that Delhi-Amritsar Shatabdi and Shane-e-Punjab will pass from there in some time. As a result, I tell the others to go home, and that I'll come after having a look at the two trains.

As the others leave, I began talking more and more with the guy, and turns out he used to live in Mohali once, though that was very far off in time and all (ain't Mohali a new city?).... Anyways, he tells me that Shatabdi should've passed his crossing by then, and that it was running a bit too late. Now, with the traffic passing through the crossing at that time, it meant that at any moment of time, a phone call would arrive and he would have to close the fatak, change the signals with the levers etc. Making sure that all the traffic passed in time, or at least waited when he would close (or lower) the fatak would be very important.


In just a few minutes, a call arrives, and after mumbling a few words, and scribbling a few numbers on his notebook, he tells me he's going to close the fatak. But due to the traffic, he could not do it for about 5 minutes, and those 5 minutes were very difficult for him. He had to practically yell at the people riding the cars, trucks, bikes, the cyclists, the rickshaw-wallas, the pedestrians walking slowly and some more. Even I tried going in the middle of the road and trying to tell the people to wait or pass quickly, but.. lesson learnt: I can't ever be a traffic policeman!

Another phone call, and the same mumbling/scribbling routine, and the guy tells me another train is coming. So, with an even more sense of urgency, he goes out and starts yelling at the people, who this time budge, and allow him to close the fatak. In just about a few seconds, we hear the horn of a train engine, and in a minute the Shatabdi comes and goes, just like an aandhi. In about 2-3 minutes, another train (Shere-e-Punjab) too passes and then he releases the fatak, and then the traffic goes on in its frantic manner. Things are normal. I bid him farewell and start walking towards away to my aunt's home.

As I walked, I thought of the amount of stress the fatak-wala man had to go through in a day, with almost a hundeed trains passing through the crossing during his 12-hour shift. My stresses and worries are nothing as compared to the responsibility that he, as a meager class-IV government employee had to handle. Honestly, I think I am unable to express the amount of frustration he went through in about 5 minutes, and the amounts of it he goes through all the time.

As I said, sometimes I feel too stressed to even think. This has to be one of those times. What amazes me is that all the timemost of the time, it takes somebody else's plight to notice that we are in a far better place than them. I am not stressed at my situation, I am feeling like an idiot for being stressed about my situation, when the world has obviously more important things to worry about.