WORLD NO. 1 AT 43

A Tribute to Rohan Bopanna 

To achieve this level of greatness,

In a field that is ruled by the young,

Is the stuff that dreams are made of - 

One wonders, is age but a number? 

Time takes its toll on all of us - 

It is good to gracefully accept,

The graying hair and the balding patch,

But not let go of what you dreamt! 

The prize is not in the laurels,

Or the money or even fame;

They may or may not come in due course,

What counts is to stay in the game! 

The dreams may change and the  goals may shift,

For nothing is static in this world;

But to have none and to retire,

Is the beginning of the end! 

At any stage in life I'm but half done,

The more exciting half yet to come; 

Let me not rest on my laurels,

But keep chasing dreams, and have them! 

Dinesh Gopalan,

31 January, 2024

Experts are of the opinion that ...

Check out this article on how a UN body has been infiltrated by terrorists: 

https://x.com/HillelNeuer/status/1751955667035025729?t=QGcOfrSpyUKWml0IsJW9BQ&s=08

The UN is infiltrated by terrorists, and their sympathisers.

Just like the WHO is infiltrated by the Pharma Lobby.

And we blindly believe these jokers.

In fact , whenever I am reading something, the biggest red flag is when the article says 

" Experts are of the opinion that..." 

"Experts" are those who study from the official curriculum and get "recognised" certifications. 

The "official bodies" that certify them peddle an "official" curriculum. 

The official curriculum is made by "accredited" and "reputed" organisations. 

Which in turn are infiltrated by Jihadists, Terrorists, Pro Vaccine disease mongers, and the like. 

The only way to survive is to make your own conclusions based on first principles. Go back to the source / the  genesis, and trace things from there. 

And be not swayed by the hundreds of people who quote the "experts" to you.

Every apex organisation is  suspect, and there are a few which are definitely compromised. The top of the list of compromised organisations is US FDA, closely followed by every UN organisation. The "educational" bodies like ICSE, CBSE, etc are also total rubbish -  if you think they are working for your child's education, you are mistaken.

All systems work for their own benefit, and the consumer is merely the fodder to ensure their sustenance!

The decline of Bollywood

So,

Ricky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani sweeps the Filmfare awards! 

I remember liking the movie when I watched it in August ( link to my review: 

https://www.dineshgopalan.com/2023/08/karan-johar-ki-prem-kahani.html

However, at no point did I feel that it was a "great" movie, worthy of winning awards. 

Best Actress to Alia Bhat and Shabana Azmi, Best Dialogue to Ishita Moitra, best choreography to Ganesh Acharya...

Have also watched 12th Fail, again, a decent enough movie, but at no point did one feel that it deserved any awards. And that is the other movie that has swept up a bunch of awards! 

I think it's a telling indicator of the decline of Bollywood, if you have to hand out awards to such at best above average films.

Time for the Bollywood directors and script writers to take classes from the South Indian movie industry. 

A lot of Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam movies released in 2023  beat these two movies hollow. 

Move over Bollywood, tumhaara time khatm ho gaya! 

Guest at a Parsi wedding

I have had the privilege of attending many Parsi weddings / Navjots due to my stint in Godrej early in my career. 

Each pangat used to take one hour and ten minutes ( yes, I timed it). 

But let's start from the beginning. The weddings / Navjots ( thread ceremony, for both boys and girls) are held only in the evening. Guests flow in and usually head for the Bar. The bride and groom are left alone on the dais; why do they need anyone except the priest? 

The bar pours only Parsi pegs, which is the equivalent of a Patiala peg. The Parsis can outdo the Punjabis in drinking, and cursing. Not being called BC / MC by a Parsi friend means he doesn't love you. By the way, there is no water in the bar, or anywhere else. The wife wanted water once, and after much consultation, they directed her to the backside of the kitchen, and I am not making this up.

A typical Parsi Pangat is served on banana leaves - talking of which by the way, this modern tendency to have a "buffet" is complete nonsense - the only real meal is the sit-down meal. 

The guests would all head for the meal with their drinks in hand. You are first served "lagan nu achar", a special sweet and tangy pickle made just for weddings", and then it starts. The first course is always fish, Patra nu Machli used to be my favourite, followed by one more course of fish.

This is followed by a Chicken course, say Tangdi Kabab, followed by another round of Tangdi Kabab.

Then follows the Mutton Biryani followed by another round of Mutton Biryani.

Then comes the dessert, a top favourite used to be Kulfi from Parsi Dairy. 

The whole thing takes a little more than an hour. The others don't mind waiting, since the bar is always open. 

There is always provision  made for the vegetarians, and it's nice food too.

But who in his right mind would eat vegetarian food at a Parsi wedding? 

It's been years since I have attended a Parsi wedding. I quit Godrej in 1994, and after that have not had the opportunity. 

Now is the time in life when all my contemporaries are inviting me for their children's weddings. 

I think I need to call all my Parsi colleagues of Godrej and renew the friendship, in order to wrangle an invite for their children's wedding. 

Yes! The more I think about it, the more appetising that seems!

( Posted to my blog; 

https://www.dineshgopalan.com/

Nutrients, where art thou

Check out this link on how quality of agricultural produce is depleting: 

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/food/silent-famine-has-india-weakened-its-own-nutritional-security--93956

**********

Summary: ceteris paribus, new "high yielding" varieties have less ability to extract nutrients from the soil.

The soils are getting poorer in nutrients.

The concentration of toxic elements in food is increasing.

So we are getting less nutrients, more poisons. 

*****************

Not surprising.

Solution? 

Go organic. 

Eat a handful of seeds every day. 

Use only raw sea salt and / or  senda namak. They are nutrient dense. 

It is preferable to soak seeds in water for a few hours before having them. 

Apart from the usual other things you should do, like: 

Use only cold pressed oils, avoid refined oils. 

Avoid processed foods - they are not even food, even whatever there is,  is denuded. 

Buy whole foods. And cook them at home. And eat food within hours of being cooked.  

Have some supplements, preferably Ayurvedic. Allopathic "multi vitamins" are mostly useless.

( posted to my blog: 

http://www.dineshgopalan.com )

PRAN PRATISHTHA

In the continuum of life and events,

We need milestones, markers placed on the way;

Some of them stand out as more significant,

Marking a new beginning or change of course!

A nation needs to shift consciousness,

A people need to shed their diffidence,

For too long have we all been held ransom,

To conspiracy of enfeeblement!

Only the assertive are respected,

Only the aggressive not trifled with;

We are by very nature pacifist,

But to exist in the world one needs to fight!

The Hindu is at last waking up,

To the perverted nature of things;

The euphoria around Ram in Ayodhya,

Is not just about Him or a Temple! 

High end villa in Bangalore

I am just sending a front page ad in the TOI for a villa in Whitefield, from Total Environment, for 13 plus crores. 

How to add price without really adding value.

Bangalore builders Total Environment are masters at that.

Modus Operandi: 

Or: how to extract money from the Bangalore software crowd. 

Buy piece of land on outskirts. Build a good quality house. So far so good. 

But how do you extract three times the price from the techie? The typical  Bangalore software senior executive, is, as we know, earning a lot of money and waiting to hand it over if you use the right approach.

So,

Create a "natural" / "earthy" / "environmentally conscious" image around the brand.

Grow grass on the roof, keep exposed brick, make it rustic. 

From the picture I suspect these are row houses sharing common walls , which is distinctly not upmarket. I may be mistaken but it looks like that. So, you call it "V 40" ( for a moment I thought it was a BMW engine), " earth sheltered" ( what does that mean??), " courtyard homes" ( make up your mind, is it a home or a courtyard?), and , "exclusive access to your rear garden ( oh thank God. I always like access to my rear to be exclusive!) 

Next step is to choose a name. 

Total Environment excels in this department. Their names are like: 

Opera of a Symphonic Synchrony 

Vistas of a Jungle Epiphany 

Ninth Orgasm in Seventh Heaven,

And so on 

Next, how to extract more money: let's have grades, like silver, gold..  how about green grade and then upgrade to purple, which is the colour of royalty. 

It's very funny, but the more exclusive and rich people become, the more gradations they want to prove that they are more exclusive and rich than their neighbour. Your typical middle class fellow buying a flat at Puttanna Afrahara will never be impressed by such distinctions. "Adhella bitbidi, rate heli ashte", he will say. 

But, please to remember, the target market is the Bangalore MNC executive. So, green and purple it is.

And then, it strikes them. These people have so much money, they don't know what to do with it. So, what to do? How to take it from them? Offer early payment plan. Pay 12 crores ( small change for the Bangalore IT MNC executive, as we all know) up front and get ten percent discount. 

It is another funny human trait that, we chase after products that are priced three times ( 300 percent) of what they should be, and then get suckered to get a ten percent discount. 

And then you throw in a "dedicated design manager" , and "personalised architect", really valuable to the techie, who knows only software. For everything else in life, including stepping out into the street, he needs a dedicated manager.  Contrast that with our fellow in Puttanna Afrahara who,  when he builds a house, his contractor does everything for him. 

And thus the price for a row house near a remote Lake in a Whitefield suburb reaches 13  crores * .  The * of course means there are several extras over and above that. To put that in perspective, for Bombay people, this is like selling a flat in Dombivili at Upper Worli rates. 

It does not matter to the IT Executive since he will plonk down the money by selling one percent of his stock options.

So the techie executive does that. He is happy. His family is happy, Total Environment is happy. Bangalore has a way of making everyone happy.

On "preventive" medical check ups

 

How do you make a healthy person sick? 

Start with "evidence based" medicine. Define a 100 parameters, each of which has a normal range, and each of which has, say, five percent outliers. Outliers are defined as "sick" people.

If you have a 100 parameters, in each of which 5 percent of the population will be held to be "sick", what is the probability that you will be sick if a hundred such parameters are measured? 

Get 100 perfectly healthy people into a free health check up camp. There is a one hundred percent probability that more than ninety percent of them will be declared sick. 

The health check ups are the front desk marketing people for the Pharma lobby.

You will be "advised" to take medication based on the contents of your reports. 

The medicines will make you sick, both physically and mentally. Physically, since they are poisons being shoved into your system, and mentally, since you become dependent on medications to even feel healthy. 

Slowly, you get addicted to the medicines. 

And then your real problems start. 

More problems, more tests, more medicines, more sickness. More bakras ( sacrificial goats) for the medical system. 

And of course the prognosis is always dire. If you don't take the medicines you will get BP, diabetes, ulcers, cancer... You who are now completely brainwashed, take more medicines.

And surprise surprise, it all turns out true! You do get sicker. 

But what you don't realise is that the  the reason why you get sicker is the medicines themselves. 

Preventive medical check-ups are a way to keep the hospital and Pharma assembly lines continuously fed with patients. 

I have followed a simple rule in life ( among the many simple rules I follow, this is an important one). 

Never go for preventive medical check-ups.

Never, ever.

( posted to my blog : 

http://www.dineshgopalan.com)

Koffee with Orry

I don't watch Karan Johar, in fact he puts me off.

But I happened to watch the latest episode, the first half of which features Orry, since the wife, who is a Koffee fan ( don't ask me why, I think it is a form of escapism, anything serves to escape from the rest of the family), was watching it. 

Now you don't know who Orry is? Poor poor you. You are  an antediluvian junk piece who has lost their relevance in this world. 

Orry is the thing. He is the goods. Everyone talks about Orry. He is everywhere. Since he is everywhere, everyone talks about him, and vice versa. What exactly did he do to achieve fame? I already told you just now! 

That twenty minute Karan interview of Orrie is one of the best I have seen. You can't make out whether he is misguided, delusional, or just  off his rocker. Then you realise that it is the others who are misguided, delusional and off their rockers and he is merely taking advantage of it. And he makes no bones about it. 

After watching the twenty minutes, you don't know whether to pity Orrie, pity the rest of the world, or both. 

Watch it, it's worth it 

The balance part of the episode features four well known comedians who are supposed to be roasting Karan. Very cringey, avoidable.

A ZOMBIE WALK

A Palki Sharma video on how weight loss drugs are becoming the New Nirmal. 

https://youtu.be/HNiJ8Tho3Fs?si=YTBdMPKC4kBGj4fU

Everyone is barking up the wrong tree.

Obesity and associated lifestyle illnesses are rising. Rather than attack the root cause of the problem, which , by the way, common sense will tell you and so called doctors won't, you introduce weight loss drugs. 

Screw up your body with bad food, lack of exercise, and bad lifestyles. Then screw it up further by taking medication which directly interferes with the body's metabolism. Need we mention, these drugs are expensive, and they have to be taken life long. 

The holy grail for the Pharma companies: life long medication that is patented and that ensures that you never get cured. 

And what is it that people want ? They want these drugs to become cheaper and more accessible. Under the assumption that all lifestyle diseases will rise , that they are the new normal. Of course. The food corporations will ensure that. 

And we accept all of this as normal. 

As an individual you and I need to take that call to return to sanity. It starts by rejecting all that the medical industry and their handmaidens, the doctors and scientists are telling us. And getting back to common sense. Following the basic rules of healthy living. 

But we won't do that, will we? 

Oh no, we won't. It's far easier to just pop the pills, and reduce ourselves to an unthinking zombie state. 

We human beings are unbelievably self destructive creatures.

The rise and fall of Byju's

👆 Byju Ravindran even today can crack a CAT or similar exam with a 99 plus percentile score - he routinely does it in fact. 

He started by taking CAT  classes and was very good at it. 

Then he expanded into school, college etc education. With excellent course material. And he scaled up. 

Then ambition, and  VC funding took over. The money came by the truckload. Now, a VC who gives you money wants you to expand, and expand fast. The focus is mainly on the topline. The entrepreneur who is drunk with all that easy money goes bar hopping, with a string of drinkers in tow, and at every place he visits, announces that drinks are on the house. The top line skyrockets, based on which the VC's increase the valuation of the company in the subsequent rounds.

When the VC's increase the valuation at which the new round raises money, the value of the investment is marked upwards in all the funds that invested in the company. Now the VC's get drunk on euphoria. 

The entrepreneur meanwhile is under severe pressure to expand, expand, expand. 

Byju's has received 5 billion dollars, that is 40000 crores , in 28 rounds of funding so far. 

The pressure to increase the topline was so high that Ravindran's army of sales people started mis-selling the products, and the accountants engaged in questionable accounting practices to inflate the topline. 

Obviously, this was not going to last for long. The backlash started, and everything started winding down, correcting. 

Our man Ravindran, I believe, has run off to Dubai. 

And now, the company, into which 5 billion dollars have been pumped in, is worth 1 billion. 

The perils of excess. The perils of debt. The perils of unchecked ambition. The sin of greed. Every scripture has earned us about it, and said it will bring ruin. 

The scriptures are right, but with a slight twist. In today's times, it does bring ruin, to everyone but the promoter. 

He is partying in Dubai, while everyone else is cleaning up the debris.

Why is aging associated with ill health?

This automatic assumption that one will be always  "sick" when one crosses 50, 60, or whatever and , and will  need medication ... Where does that come from? 

The "modern" medical system has effectively ensured that. 

Medicines are meant to be taken when you are not well. Being "not well" is not a continuous condition. 

The human body is designed in such a way that we will always be well. There will be brief periods of illness when we need to pull back on activities, give the body some rest, maybe take some medicines, and allow it to recover. This is irrespective of age. 

The default condition for the human body is wellness, not illness. Modern lifestyles, food lobbies, and Pharma mafias have ensured that the reverse is the case