Adieu चवन्नी

Today India has officially relegated its चवन्नी's as useless bits of small change

On 18th May 2011 RBI announced the retirement of the good old 25 Paisa coin. The retirement comes into effect from 30th June 2011 (The day of writing the post)

The notice is available in the RBI website (you can follow this link)

Though decimalization happened about half a century back, 25 paisa were always known and will continue to be fondly remembered as the ..... चवन्नी

So the logical question is - When will अठन्नी go ? ....

We can come to an approximate time by reasonable deduction - here's one flow of reason ....
- अठन्नी would go at that time when the value represented by अठन्नी becomes too small for people to care about it .... we now need to know the value below which people generally don't care to discriminate... And it's here चवन्नी 's retirement will serve as a good benchmark... So, after putting 2 and 2 together - अठन्नी will (most probably) go when its value is equal to that of today's चवन्नी

... or in other words when the price levels doubles (and money's value halves)

... Assuming a conservative inflation rate of 7% this is going to happen in about 12 years from now .... sometime in the year 2023 ..

So in 2023 अठन्नी will (most likely) become useless and Indian currency will be staring at an interesting crossroad ... one of it's two units of measuring money (rupee and paisa) will become useless ...

We will be left with only Rupee ...

At that point government would have many options ...

One would be to introduce higher value units ... say a Mohur or Asharfi ... with one of Mohur/Asarfi equal to 15 (traditional) or 100 (plausible) or 1000 (my reco) Rupees ...

Another option would be to come out with a New Rupee and Paise which will be about 100 times the value of current Rupee and Paisa .... This option is very likely to cause a lot of confusion ...

Third, and most rational, option would be to do nothing .... and just let Rupee continue as the sole unit of Indian money ....

भाग्य भविष्य का जीवन ज्ञान - 1

यह ज्ञान "लाल किताब के टोटके व उपाय" नामक पुस्तक से अर्जित है.

" लाल किताब .." वह पुस्तक है जो की सुख-सम्पति, सौभाग्य और शांति के लिए लिखी गयी है.

इस पुस्तक के माध्यम से आप अपनी सभी तक्लीफों, दुखों एवं परेशानियों से छुटकारा पा सकते हैं.

निम्नलिखित नियमों का पालन किये बिना नौ ग्रहों के उपाय का फल निष्प्रभावी सिद्ध होगा -

• शंख-ध्वनी प्रातःकाल अवश्य करें
• तुलसी का वृक्ष अवश्य लगायें
• ब्राह्मणों को भोजन अवश्य कराएँ
• लक्ष्मीजी की उपासना अवश्य करें
• एकादशी के दिन दान अवश्य करें
• दिन में मैथुन न करें
• नग्न हो कर स्नान न करें
• माता पिता का अनादर न करें
• सास, श्वसुर एवं परिवार के सदस्यों को आदर दें
• नित्य प्रातःकाल बड़ों से आशीर्वाद लें
• मदिरा का सेवन न करें
• तन-मन से भोजन ग्रहण करें
• सूर्य की ओर मुख करके लघुशंका न करें
• ऋण लेकर अवश्य चुकाएं
• टूटे बर्तन घर में न रखें
• खाने से पहले गौ-ग्रास अवश्य निकालें
• गंजे आदमी से दोस्ती न करें

Is it just me ?

I have been around for some time now ... long enough to remember at least 3 decades ... of all the three - the one that has just gone past seems to be the most happening one ... job ... school ... venture ... illness ... recovery ... throw in a few nice friends (including the female kind) ... a few memorable trips ... a wonderful wife ... an adorable son ... and the decade rates high on the interesting scale ...

is it just me? ... or is everyone going through interesting times? ...

???
??
?

It's a small world

Here's an interesting one -

Late Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran ... of the Rushdie fatwa fame (older generations might remember the overthrow of Shah's regime)

... He has a huge India connection ... It seems his grandfather was born in Barabanki , India and grumps supposedly lived in Lucknow for a long time ... said to have moved on when the British gained the upper hand in India ... the Ayatollah's born name - "Ruhollah ibn Mustafa Musawi Khomeini Hindi" ... so he was called "the Indian" ....

Interestingly .... the guy against whom he pronounced the (in)famous fatwa- Salman Rushdie .... also has Indian roots ... He was born in India and he studied in Bombay

aren't the Indians everywhere ...

Vidya Dadati Vinayam - Gyan from the past

Bringing to you the famous 6th verse from the preface of "Hitopadesha" .

Wikipedia tells us that Hitopadesha is a Sanskrit text that was probably written by a guy named Narayan and that " ..The book has many stories in common with the Panchatantra; it is believed that the author Narayana loved the Pachatantra so much that he rewrote it, improving the flow and adding stories of his own .." .

The book probably contains stories and gives us some "good advice".... There is no unanimity(on the net) on the year of creation of these verses ... some say they were writen in 11th - 12th century AD... I haven't read the book (though might have read the stories at various places)

So here we go -

विद्या ददाति विनयं विनयाद्याति पात्रताम् ।
पात्रत्वाद्धनमाप्नोति धनाद्धर्मं ततः सुखम् ॥

vidyA dadAti vinayaM, vinayAdyAti pAtratAM ।
pAtratvAddhanamApnoti, dhanAddharmaM tataH sukhaM ।।

विद्या vidyA = knowledge । ददाति dadAti = dad verb, to give । विनयं vinayaM = training, discipline, cultured mannerism (from training), humbleness, Prudence(my interpretation for usage) । yAti = comes । पात्रताम् pAtratAM = worthiness । pAtratvAt = from worthiness । dhanaM = wealth, money, enrichment । dhanAt = from wealth, from enrichment(my interpretation for usage) । dharmaM = Right thought and action, Right conduct (my interpretation of usage) । some words morph when used in combined form in Devanagari rendition of sanskrit , have not given the devanagari for those words in this translation key।

My interpretation -
Knowledge makes one prudent, prudence begets worthiness　।
Worthiness creates wealth and enrichment, enrichment leads to right conduct, right conduct brings contentment　।।

They had taught me these words in school Sanskrit ... but that was a very long time back ... and school was such a waste of time .....

Coming soon - Interesting Persian words and their usage in Hindustani

Sources for which links were not given in the post - HITOPADESHA -Collection of Tales , Practical Sanskrit Note at facebook

Cool Obama

Not covering his politics ... there is lots of it ... and I haven't been following it ...

This is about his cool quotient ...

Came across the piece on his physical condition in news ... here's dugout news for you ... seems like Obama is a real cool dude ... resting heart rate of 56/minute and BP of 105/62 ... both the numbers are impressive ... when Obama gets worked up both his heart rate and BP are expected to rise ... but since the rise will be from a very low base he would still remain cool for an increasing amount of (for the lack of a better word) "agitation" ... very cool thing to have if you are in a position where calm and rational thinking (of whichever shade of political thought) is extremely important ... some might say US President is a job which may not require one to have calm and rational thinking ... the previous President can be sited as a supporting artefact for this line of thinking ... leave "calm" and "rational"... he was accused of having done no thinking at all ...

Coming back to heart rates ... for comparison- an average person can expect a heart rate in the 70-80 beats/minute range ...my resting heart rate would be somewhere in the 75 to 85 beats per minute range ... and Lance Armstrong's resting heart rate would be around 32 (reported here) ... which probably explains why I haven't been winning any US President's elections or Tour de France lately...

What should I be doing this year?

So it’s a new year… (not that “new” actually…. about 20 of the 365 allocated days of this year have already gone past)… and Its another year into remission (the test was on 9th, Result came out on 15th – all clean) … so in keeping with long standing traditions (whose logic has not been verified ) it is a good time to take stock of things and then indulge in some wishful thinking for the future..

Before I get into it- acknowledgements -This job was made slightly easy by Gokhale who has already shared his thoughts on the subject … Taking a cue from him... I am making this public declaration of my intentions … With the hope that a positive public pressure will help me meet the targets….

here’s my list

1. Physical wellbeing

1.1. Eat and drink properly- If I do this one correct, a lot of ground will be covered on the health front...
Targets
1.1.1. Drink at least 2.5 liters of water a day … spread over the whole day … (baseline – currently irregular, around 2 liters/day)
1.1.2. Eat at regular intervals … with the last meal to be a small one taken before 9 PM ... (baseline - currently last meal is heavy and usually after 9:30)

1.2. Get ample sleep – Sleep, in my opinion, is an absolute must for physical well being … and I think I haven’t been getting enough of it
Targets
1.2.1. Sleep atleast 8 hours in a night … (baseline - less than 8 on most nights)
1.2.2. Carry no sleep deficit to next week week …

1.3. Waist and Stamina – Waist is a key downstream indicator… To control waist I will have to get a lot of other things under control… (Much like project tiger… where to protect the tiger the whole ecosystem has to be protected)… The approach is to work away the waist rather than starve to a thinner midsection.
Targets
1.3.1. Under 32 inches (baseline -38 inches at the widest :-(
1.3.2. Enough stamina to run a half marathon by the end of the year (baseline 2.5 KM max)

2. Mental wellbeing

2.1. Learn a Language - This is part of a more ambitious target of learning one new language a year . Since I know Hindi and a bit of Sanskrit and Urdu … Persian(Farsi) looks achievable
Target
2.1.1 Work @ 1 Lesson/day on http://www.easypersian.com

2.2. Gyan Recap – Whatever I am supposed to know... Small background- In my student life, I was very efficient… I used to pass most of my examinations with minimal effort … I lapped up the subjects as fast as they were thrown at me… With time (and there was plenty of it) I perfected the art to such an extent that I could pass with very little studying… As a result, I fear that, I might not have learnt as much as some of my more studious mates …To top it up my jobs hardly require any of the learnt knowledge … so I have started to loose the gyan .. I think a recap would be a good idea …
Target
2.2.1. Finish reacp of one broad topic a month

2.3. Write more often – Another background - As I have mentioned somewhere earlier- I was very efficient in childhood…. So efficient that I felt no need to maintain proper homework copies after as early as class 2 … This required a lot of skill in maneuvering myself through the schooling system without getting caught- for some strange reason, my teachers had a fetish for checking homework copies... they kept on asking me for HomeWork copies … I devised many successful ways to give slip to the teachers… As a result of my success in keeping away from homework, I could never get enough practice on writing… Which explains why writing doesn’t come spontaneously to me… It think its time to make amends and therefore I should write more blog posts.
Target
2.3.1. At least 50 blog posts in 2010 (baseline - 4 blog posts in 2009)

3. Relative wellbeing

3.1. Travel more often– Family that moves together, grooves together. I think i should take wife and son out more often
Targets
3.1.1. Take atleast 26 leave in this year .
3.1.2. Take Shams to three new places in a month

3.2. Stay in touch with family
Targets
3.2.1. Whenever Mom is in Delhi, meet her at least thrice a month
3.2.2. Visit In-laws at least once in a quarter.
3.2.3. Call Mom, Sis and Dad at least once a week.
3.2.4. Call all other relatives at least once a quarter.

3.3. Learn to Invest – Learn and try to limit all the mistakes to now (when I don’t have that much) rather than latter ( when I expect to have more).
Target :
3.3.1. Not lose money

4. Social wellbeing

4.1. Have lots of friends
Targets
4.1.1. Connect more often with existing friends
4.1.2. Make atleast 5 new friends outside office

4.2. Cooking – Learn new stuff
Targets
4.2.1. Make 6 sets of folks eat lunch/dinner cooked by me (might be counterproductive to social well being , but what the heck)

4.3. Help a few people – People near me, around me

... In earlier times … I used to ask friends to send feedback (on me) on Newyears… Very few replied … lesser number replied truthfully … I can easily trace the cause to the time of the year… Newyear makes people lie and it also prevent them from giving good feedback… all this primarily because people get into the habit of lying while filling their yearly appraisals.... and then some more when they read other peoples appraisals (which they appraise)… too much of appraisals also keeps people from giving good feedback.

Anyways… not much can be done about this … And I am still open to suggestions... So shoot if you have nice targets to suggest to me.

Chalo Copenhagen

My cousin Ramsha is headed to Copenhagen for climate negotiations

Here's a picture of hers (extreme right) with rest of the official youth contingent and the Environment Minister




Picture taken from Hindu web article

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/article60174.ece