Just discovered that Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and I have at least one thing in common – we are all on Twitter. Of course, its a different story that no body follows my updates on Twitter.

However, I found that both Clinton and Obama are quite active on Twitter and here are their twitter links:
http://twitter.com/hillaryclinton
http://twitter.com/barackobama

Going solely based on these logs, I find Obama to be a lot more energetic and proactive as compared to his competitor.
Some updates of Obama:

- Encouraging everyone in DC, MD and VA to vote today. Heading to Madison, WI for a Rally for Change event at the Kohl Center (6:15pm tonight)
- In Las Vegas, Nevada. Fired Up & Ready to Go!
- is Fired Up!.. And Ready to Go!

Updates of Clinton:

- I’m delivering a major foreign policy speech at George Washington University in Washington, DC today.
- This afternoon I was at an energetic rally in Providence, RI. Later today I’m heading to Central Falls for a health care roundtable.
- I am in Tacoma and Spokane, WA to talk to voters about “Solutions for America.”

For me, it is interesting how technology has easily permeated into the political domes of the USA, whereas in India most politicians struggle with even simple SMS-ing or checking mails on the internet.

Weekend was in Delhi and Agra, which was of course unfortunate because I was at the Taj Mahal without Mrs. Dhi Only One.

An office off-site: you know the works. Presentations, interactions, and HR exercises (not necessarily in order of priority). And thankfully, the HR exercises were not about playing Tambola or Housie or Bingo around the marble pillars of the Taj Mahal.
It was insightful (swear) and tiring at the same time.

However, the bits I enjoyed most were some observations during the trip. If you have driven on the expressways/freeways of the USA, you might have stopped for some rest at any of the McDonald’s outlets and had a burger. However, what do you do if you halt your drive for a while on Agra’s dusty lanes? You have the indigenous roadside cart, selling, as shown below, “burger hee burger” for a beat-the-hell-out-of-McD’s price of Rs. 5 only.

The other interesting observation was of small kids selling key chains outside the entrance of the Taj Mahal. Some of these kids were dressed up in their school uniforms and came up to me as I entered the park leading to the Taj’s entrance. A group of them asking me to buy a keychain for “just Rs. 5″. Then, from the opposite side came a couple of foreign origins and the entire bunch of kids ran up to them. I didn’t get a chance to buy, neither did I get a chance to decide whether to buy or not!

But all that was forgotten when this magnificent structure came up in front of my eyes.

After this, it was back to presentations, HR exercises (nope no Tambola again) and a tired flight back to good old Bangalore.

It is that time of the year again – the time to think about fitness and being in shape and all that paraphernalia (Recently, I have started using this word a lot, much to Mrs. Dhi Only One’s chagrin).

So, I decided enough was enough and it was time to take some action. Being a solely-dependent-on-the-internet-for-my-survival kind of a person, the first thing that I promptly did was to create a wiki for myself. The reason I did this is so that I can track my weight and waist periodically. Yes, notice the urgency I had. I created a wiki, not waste time on surveying gyms and buying weights and all that paraphernalia (managed to type it without any error this time). Of course, I didn’t use a mundane excel sheet since that is too outdated.

The wiki was created, with three fields in bold – date, waist size and weight. The first date was entered promptly. The next thing to do was to figure out (pun intended, smart eh?) how to enter the data for subsequent dates. I finally struck upon the idea that jogging was going to be my bit to ensure that the wiki looks lively and a continuously monitored one.

So, I set about planning for a jog. 6 am in the morning didn’t seem a bad idea, except that the calendar on my phone had to be synchronized with the alarm feature (yes, it is a complicated phone for the solely-dependent-on-the-technology-for-my-survival kinds). Once done, I was all armed and the least bit alarmed.

6 am and the song of Wicked Games by Chris Isaac wafted romantically from my phone. Yes, I had chosen that song as an alarm tone. Bad choice I agree, since all it made me do was to just lie in bed and listen to that song which instantly doubled up as a lullaby. However, the resolve was strong and the table in the wiki flashed before my eyes. I was up in a flash and changed into my jogging gear, which is quite modest in appearance.

I get out of my home gates and start jogging on the road. Immediately a pack of dogs appear, tidying up their night rule and readying to get back to their kennels or to wherever stray dogs of the night go. But heck, why not some last minute fun before hitting home, they thought to themselves. So all of them looked at me, looked at each other and gave a nod and started barking.

Promptly, I in my modest jogging gear did a U-turn and jogged all the way to the nearby park. I did not show any expression of fear or danger on my face. I just calmly jogged my way through the turn and continued jogging for a good 2 minutes or so. The dogs were probably disappointed with that reaction since they too trotted away after putting me in a park with a few hundred old men and women.

This was the tough part. The park has a walkway and it was filled with geriatric activity. Old people in sweaters and shawls were walking at a pace detrimental to a jogger, swinging their hands from one horizon to the other at the back. I slowed down, breathing heavily but kept my jogging motion on. Wading through the hordes of sweaters and sneezes and morning gossip, I maintained my jogging for a good 5 minutes more before I decided, once again, enough was enough. I sat down a bench and watched the folks walking round after round. It made me dizzy. The sun emerged and I walked back home, blissfully content.

It has been four days since I resumed the activity, but heck, I have one entry in the wiki anyway.

More on this later, ladies and gentlemen. Enjoy.

The Better News

Causes of Conflict Not Deep Rooted

The first piece of more heartening news is that none of the causes of Zimbabwe’s current discontents seem to have roots so deep that the situation cannot be quickly turned round once some decent leadership is restored:

Ethnic conflict has occurred between Ndbele and Shona in the past, and fears are periodically expressed that the present woes will reignite it, but so far remarkably little tension of this kind has surfaced.

Democracy is not something which Zimbabweans have had much chance to enjoy under successive regimes, but on available evidence they appear to have a taste for it and would hugely welcome free and fair elections.

Economic destruction has been great, but the resource base of the country remains strong, and with good planning and international support, the situation can be reasonably rapidly reversed.

Land distribution remains an emotive and divisive issue, but – even with all the additional problems created by Mugabe’s expropriations and reallocations – it is not incapable of resolution, especially if generous resources are forthcoming from the UK and other international donors.

When Robert Fisk heard that his life of Saddam Hussein was selling well, one thing bothered him: he had never written one. His investigation took him to the murkiest corners of Cairo

Read more here on what Robert discovered in Egypt and whether he found the “true” author of that book.

A usual and normal day in my car life. It takes me about an hour to get to office daily and slightly more than an hour to get back home.

During this period, I am doing multiple things which the Deep Blue‘s processor might be fleetingly proud of. I look to the right and overtake a slow car, narrowly save my left door from a speeding auto, switch the radio channel to something better, watch out for the pedestrian who is looking the other way, ensure my cell phone is switched on, glance at my wrist watch, adjust the rear view mirror sometimes, make split-second decisions about whether to switch a lane or not, and stop in time when the traffic signal turns bright red.

This entire cycle repeats once I go past the signal and continues until I have made my presence felt at each and every signal on my way home. Add to all this, my thoughts on the day gone by and my general ruminations of the days to come and the past and the future.

Last night was one such drive back home. I stop at a signal and a young boy appears holding balloons in his hand. Balloons, which I am sure, are as much a lure to the boy himself as they are for any eight year old. As a young boy, I would find it difficult to give my toys to my friends and sibling. Imagine then, the amount of effort that is required on this boy’s part to sell those balloons to people he doesn’t even know. He walks up to the auto humming right next to my car. I deduce that the auto is carrying a family of three, a father, a mother and a young boy about the same age as that of the kid selling the balloons. The boy in the auto calls out for the balloons, the father haggles over the price, the kid asks for Rs. 10 and the father gives him the loose change of Rs. 9. Taking the balloon, the father gently taps it on the selling kid’s head and smiles. The boy doesn’t show any emotion on his face and turns around to me.

In such cases, I always face the dreaded dilemma of whether to give the kid some money and help him out or to deny it, taking comfort in the notion that the money won’t go to the kid anyway and instead will find its way in the palms of some greasy sleazeball. However, I would never know what is the right thing to do. So, while the conflict fights out in my mind, time is running out and the kid asks me in Hindi, “Kitna minute hua?”.
Minute? I ask surprised. I then figure he is asking for the time and tell him its 9:00 pm.

The boy walks away and my conflict has no base to exist. The signal turns green and as I speed away, I quickly ask my self, was the boy referring to the time my conflict was taking? Was he waiting there and watching me resolve a dilemma revolving around him? He asked for minutes, not for the time. When I did mutter the time in surprise, he had just shrugged and walked away.

“Kitna minute hua?”, the question revolved in my head and joined the whirlwind of decisions and thoughts while I overtook another slow car and saved the rear left door from a speeding motorbike, all the time figuring out which lane I should be in.

Highly recommended movie – The Odd Couple, starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.

Owing to time pressures, I shall spare the review writing bit for now. However, do go ahead and grab a copy of this movie.

Rest assured, you will laugh your way through the 2 hours and beyond. Immensely funny and brilliant.

Poster courtesy: www.allposters.com