Quel Horreur!

The French just can't help rubbing other countries the wrong way. Everyone remembers the surreal scenes of French wine being sloshed down the drains on the streets of the USA, following their Don Quixotic campaign to stop the superpower from mounting attack on a foreign country. Even the poor French Fries suffered abuse, owing more to its name rather than its country of origin.

It is definitely a déja vu now to see the enraged Hindus up in arms against everything French, because a French company, Minelli, used images of a Hindu god on its shoes. The company has since withdrawn its controversial range of footwear, but has been reluctant to offer even lip service in way of an apology.

Oh the French will be French!

But it is not the first time that Hindu images have been put to commercial uses, to the chagrin of the religious masses. I think the simplest solution is to create an apex body and give it the copyright to all imagery linked to the religion.

Seems like in this kal yug (the Hindu concept of the current age, which suffers from massive corruption and decadence) copyright laws will have to come to rescue of our gods.

Political Mess

Those who have been following Indian politics will definitely be aware of the innuendo directed by the leading opposition party BJP at its long time leader L.K. Advani.

While the nation's intelligentsia is trying to analyse the motives behind Advani's actions, I cannot help but blame it on something that I have long suspected to be the scourge of Indian politics - the excessive number of "national parties".

Never mind Advani's personal reasons for his actions, they seem to be an attempt to drag his party out of the shock defeat in the last general elections, and to dispel rumours that the party may have peaked in it's popularity and may not be able to grow its vote bank.

I believe that the problem may be more systemic than most politicians are willing to realise. Most of the major western democracies have only a few (usually two) political parties vying for the government. This gives voters clear alternatives, albeit a reduced platter of choices. The problem with Indian politics is that the election rules make it easy for regional political parties to become "national parties" and gobble up a few seats (almost always exclusively from their home states only) in the national parliament.

This has resulted in election after election delivering a fractious verdict, with no one party gaining an absolute majority for more than a decade now. This democratic quagmire means that the government is formed by a patchwork of coalitions that only work so long as the leading party is ready to be held hostage to its smaller coalition parters, without whose support it cannot stay in power.

Not only does it make running the government difficult, but it also impairs democracy by forcing each party to make compromises to even its most fundamental values in order to cling on to the seat of power. Look at the Congress party (currently in power) colliding with its Communist coalition partner over everything from foreign investment to disinvestment.

Unfortunately for Advani, and the BJP, this sytem will never deliver it the clear mandate to rule the country according to its own manifesto. My applause to Mr. Advani for his efforts to improve the fate of his party.

But so long as these regional parties with a narrow minded regional focus continue to clog the national parliament, neither the BJP nor the Congress Party can think of a tenure without pandering to whims of regional politicians.

Freebies

The other day a friend of mine (who happens to be Scandinavio-phile) managed to drag me downtown to look for this Swedish restaurant. Fortunately we didn't find it anywhere on the street where it was allegedly supposed to be. So no sign of nice blond girls freely floating around our table.

We did manage to find this nice Italian place called Zizzi. Scouring the menu, I chose a nice pasta dish - Strozzapretti Presto Rosso, umm sounds delicious. Struggling to pronounce it to the waitress, I almost got embarrassed only to realise that she was of german descent and dished out the flowery italian words with a german flatness.

The food finally arrived, and I had a smug smile this time for the waitress as she set the plates on our table. One bite and I felt something amiss - the pasta just hadnt been cooked enough! Damn and I was even paying for the two of us!

Signalling the waitress to come over, this time more confident, I complained about the pasta being dry and uncooked. Hah! Siezing the opportunity to get back at me she announced "But this is meant to be al dente! You should know that!"

That £@#µ b****, I insisted on having it taken away. "The customer is always right", I thought out loud.

She obliged. And so I started to wait, while my friend couldn't decide whether to start eating without me. "If this were a good restaurant, they'd apologise and reimburse me for the inconvenience"

To my surprise, the waitress turned up with a rocket salad and told me to have it while I waited. "That's nice of them", I thought to myself.

Not just that, but when we ordered coffee to finish off the dinner, she told us that it was on the house. (Though I wasnt sure I understood her until the bill arrived).

So 1 Rucola e Parmigiano (£3.60) + 2 espressos (2 X £1.40) = £6.40 worth of free stuff for a pasta that wasnt cooked to my satisfaction.

Now that's called Corporate Generosity. I am definitely going back to Zizzi!

Although the incident has left me with a reputation for getting freebies, and all my friends are asking me to go to "posh" restaurants with them!

Testing

Uh I finally followed the crowd into setting up my own blog. Hopefully, I will find it interesting enough to keep it up to date!

I do think that this blog will end up talking mostly about:

1. Aviation
2. Business Ideas
3. Usual blah blah

Watch this space for more.