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The crew of Rock On 2 is shooting here at Mawlynnong. Dozens of vehicles and more than a hundred people. Crazy awesome fun. We saw Purab working up close.

Shillong, you're much, much better than we ever expected. What a welcome!

Thank you Bank of Baroda for making foreign transactions even harder for us regular, honest folk. Till 2014 the paperwork for sending any telegraphic transfer from a bank was 'only' 10 pages long. 2015 saw the addition of an income tax department online form for every remittance. 2016 will probably see a personal visit from a government sleuth, all thanks to you BoB. Good job.

Hey guys, headed to Meghalaya for a vacation. Folks who've been there, please share your thoughts on what to experience, which places to visit, and where to stay. We're currently thinking Shillong, Cherrapunji-Sohra, and Mawlynnong-Riwai-Dawki (based entirely on Rupam's fantastic photo album).

Flipkart, you are in deep shit. Your website has fallen over. You insist your customers use your app to avail sale discounts... yet your app experience is only worse. Checking out from the app using a card and 3D secure is impossible. Checking out using netbanking is horrible, but with patience and perseverance it is at least possible. Seconds after taking my money, you cancel my order. Purportedly, I am not buying these goods for end use, because I bought so many. Even when I could barely buy one each after a zillion checkout attempts.

I see what your problem is. Your production systems are in deep shit. I know you must be really hard up because last week you tried to hire me to your devops team ;). Or maybe your are here because two years ago when I interviewed with you, the interviewers didn't even know what devops meant. And your HR team insisted all engineering interviewees must be strong at algorithms irrespective of the role.

My advice to you: Please get your house in order before your advertise the hell out of it.

Also, don't hold onto someone's money for two weeks. If you have to make a refund, just do it. I cancelled an order with Grofers yesterday, and the money was back with me before my phone was back on the table.

I aced it. No cheating, didn't even take 5 minutes.

I'm a genius. I should retire now.

Too Long, but Must Read.

Goli explaining the biodiversity of forest foods to the brats...

If you have kids and live in Delhi you should definitely visit, to know and taste our traditional food.

I'm a vegetarian, and would love to see more people be vegetarian. But selectively protecting animals makes no sense. Imposing your will on others per force makes no sense. The only way to change people is through love and dialog.

Poignant

Sadhna Jain

Holy shit this is scary. Very graphic and clearly shows how any stupidity on the road can be fatal. Do watch if you think going wrong side or jumping the traffic signal occasionally is OK.

Hanging loose since 2009.

Burn!

Having a good looking body was never motivation for me to exercise. But death and aches... now that's a different thing altogether.

Haldiram's just discovered buzzers. Except the cashier doesn't give you the buzzer. S/he gives you a slip. You hunt around for the right food delivery counter that takes this particular slip. That counter then gives you a buzzer.

And of course, when it buzzes and you show up to collect your food, fat uncleji has already taken what was yours, so you must wait again while they cook another serving for you.

Someone just tried squeezing past me in queue. Only he had a girth of more than 50 inches and almost toppled me over doing it. Then he had this "oh sorry I never noticed you" look on his face.

Muhahaha. Proudness.

Enlightening. A must read for all.

यह लोग मुलाकात के पहले तो कुत्ते बिल्लियों कि तरह लड़ लिए। अगर मिलते तो एक दूसरे का क्या हश्र करते? और क्या हासिल करते?

Just received this email:

We are pleased to inform you that your resume has been shortlisted for interview at Software Development Engineer position at Amazon.

To better equip you for the interview, we’d like to help you understand our Company, our culture, our work ethics and the caliber of people we are seeking. At Amazon, everyone is a Leader - please read our Leadership Principles (http://www.amazon.jobs/principles) to learn what guides every Amazonian.

Please find below the job description:

...

And so it goes on. But I haven't even applied for a job at Amazon. I am not even looking for a job change. I don't remember posting my resume on a job site in years.

Amazon, first we hear about your terrible work culture: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html . Then you begin literally commandeering people for job interviews.

I know things are bad. After all these years, you're finally being forced to post actual profits. I'm a satisfied customer of the Amazon Fire Phone and Amazon Music, but most people think these and other new products suck. But maybe you wanna begin by treating your people well. We've been hearing horror stories about Amazon workplaces for years now...

The author concisely and precisely explains what is wrong with the current model of publicly traded corporations. Living from quarter to quarter with only the short term interest of shareholders in mind, no hired executive has the capacity for long term planning or fixing malpractices.

I've myself seen this scenario play out in corporation after corporation. Companies that are not founder or family run, those that are run by boards and career CEOs, only have shareholder interest in mind. The employees, customers, suppliers, environment, morality, sustainability, long term value creation, etc, simply do not figure.

Pretty meaningful satire...

A beautiful, original thought on Independence Day. Time for India to look beyond mere nationalism.

The female help sits on one end of the field. The male help at the other. No specific duties assigned to them, yet they can't involve themselves in kite flying or any of the dozen other activities happening here. What a wonderful example of segregation our "elite" schools are setting for our children on independence day.

Hey, at least they have been allowed to sit now.

Received my daily dose of stupid early in the morning today. Some folks have organised a cycle race on the busy Golf Course Extension Road in Gurgaon. On the left we have cyclists, driving four aside, chatting, with faster cycles overtaking them from the right. On the right side of the road, we have a chain of vehicles moving slower than the cycles, photographing.

Between the cycles and these slow vehicles, trucks, fast moving cars and motorbikes are squeezing through. When overtaking these vehicles on the wrong side (left), bikes and cars are moving between the cyclists.

I stopped and talked to a number of these slow vehicles. No on appreciated the grave danger to cyclists that they were creating. The bloke you see standing next to the stopped Toyota is a doctor. After I spoke to him, he actually stopped his car in the fast lane and just stood next to it. Maybe he is being paid per patient and wants to create some business.

This explains our country perfectly. The privileged celebrate independence while the "help" wait at one side (look under the tree, they are all standing their obediently). No mingling of the rich and poor in this country, please.

So true. People hide behind hate so they don't have to confront pain. Similarly people hide behind jealousy so they don't have to confront failure.

A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

If you're in Gurgaon you should attend this. I expect this to be awesome amounts of fun.

Allow me to spoil your day!

Ya ha ha. We need such fiesty old women in India, telling the moral brigade to 'go back to their bored wife'.

Daak Kanwad. Violates every traffic rule and a number of laws, in the name of religion. Also, possibly the greatest relay race on Earth.

Easy to preach. Hard to practice.

Just let my bania ancestors down. I hand over my credit card to the checkout clerk. He says a minimum purchase of ₹100 is required for card payments. I point out that the magazine I'm buying costs ₹100. So he corrects the price he'd punched in to 100, then accepts my card.

Oh wait. Looks like Nityanand is getting the hang of this. He knows The Hulk!

I am surrounded by nerds of all fashion. Ashton Kutcher appreciates the work of Nityanand Jayaraman. But Nityanand does not appreciate who Ashton is.

This is our Delhi, and Delhi Police. Everything here is about money and connection.

You shoot me down
But I won't fall

घर की खेती

This is rather last minute... but I have a three day GA pass to Outside Lands that I won't be using.

http://www.sfoutsidelands.com/

If you need it, buzz me now.

Taking a sleeper bus after 11 years. Let's see how it goes.

Your cute pic of the day. Now get back to work!

If you are on twitter, this is your good deed for the day. Please let Unilever know that Indians are polite and reasonable, but not pushovers. Please respond to the Unilever CEO asking for the same standards to be applied to Kodai cleanup as are applied in Unilever's home country UK.

15 years yet my love affair with Corn Florentine continues unabated. Thank you Nithya for introducing me to heaven on Earth - Eden.

The Pirates of the NaarthIndien have attacked Chennai!

Instead of mourning his death, let us imbibe his life's lessons in our life.

Craftsmen at work

This

Ha ha. Looking through this was a lot of fun. Except FLAMES. I hated FLAMES and all the idiots in my class who engaged in it.

I got the summer cold...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B78XbTYFoNM

With the strong support the auto rickshaw community gives to AAP, I assumed no action would be taken against them while AAP is in power. Good to see this action. Autos are a big pain in Delhi.

Anyone in Portland willing to host a backpacker tomorrow? Krishnakanth, Abhinav, Milind...

View from my bed. Not too shabby, eh?

If you're going to fall (mildly) sick on a trip, let the trip be to Alaska. With breathtaking beauty everywhere you look, you'll be contended even in bed.

By the way, the photograph was taken right now. It is 11pm and this is how it looks outside the window. Reminds me of the story I keep retelling of the 8pm girl in Boston. If you know me well and I haven't told you that story yet, hmm, then you don't know me well enough.

Secularism means governments do not interfere in religion. Which -ism means governments should not interfere in private stock markets with public money? First the capitalist economies, now communist China is busy propping up stock indexes by pumping public money into stock markets. How is this a good thing? Didn't the investors "read the offer document carefully before investing". Aren't investments "subject to market risk".

Bailouts and propping the market is not what I pay tax for.

On the road again...

Throwback of a throwback. Lets see how many can even recognise me in the picture.

If you're dad to a creative, hard working young man, you should watch The Chef.

Look what just came into our mailbox...

"sir,
it would be helpful for my final year project if you could mail me source code of your automatic ticket vending machine. kindly please mail it to me as my project mainly depends on the source code."

How am I supposed to respond to this kind of shit? "Here, take all my IP, so you don't have to do your homework. And would you like some fries with that, Sir?"