Today evening, I watched the ‘Sleuth’ drama by ACTor theatre and directed by Pawan Kumar.

The play has an interesting story and takes a lot of turns and twists. It even has a cheeky sense of humour that’s just about right. As Times of India mentions in Page 2 today:

The Broadway-styled play Sleuth made its first appearance on the London stage in 1970 and it was an instant success. Winner of the Tony award in 1971, the play has a twist every 15 minutes. As the tradition goes, reviewers and the audience are requested not to reveal the plot and never has it been in the written word.

In spite of that, I want to talk about the real story.

The real story is Pawan Kumar, the director. He used to study in the same college as myself and he was involved in a lot of plays in our batch’s theatre group “Center Stage”. He soon left college for the “love of theatre” and went to get involved in theatre full time. It sounds “cool” and all, but honestly how many of us would have taken such a step? It takes real guts and belief to do something like that. After seeing ‘Sleuth’, I am happy that he took that step. It is a brilliant production of a play and I am looking forward to what he comes up with next.

More details about the play itself are at rangashankara.org

It has arrived!

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Ashok Banker has autographed it and has written a brief message for me

Come to think of it… I might be the first person in India (other than Ashok himself) to have this book, since it is slated to be released on 16th June!

Even if that is not true, I have an autographed copy … 20 years from now, art collectors will try to buy it from me, but I won’t give in.

Now, excuse me, I have some reading to do.

I had been to the library to look for a copy of Lee Iacocca’s autobiography, but all the copies had gone out. Then, I chanced upon this book called The Second coming of Steve Jobs in the same section. Honestly, how could I resist that? The timing couldn’t have been better since I was impressed after watching this year’s SteveNote.

The book was quite a revelation. There have been many “Whoa, really?!” moments when reading that book. Most of all, the book reveals how much of a maniac Steve really is (and I mean that in a nice way).

I remember watching the Toy Story movie a long time ago, but reading the history behind it was incredible. Yes, Pixar company is owned by Steve Jobs (if you didn’t know already).

Some interesting passages:

About Steve’s attitude:

Steve’s executives knew that there were only two ways to deal with him: either submit entirely to his will or have the intelligence and courage to survive his brutal confrontations. “Steve tests you, challengs you, frightens you,” explains Todd Rulon-Miller, who worked closely with Steve for six years. “He uses this as a tactic to get to the truth. Behind the profanity, it’s his way of asking: ‘Do you believe what you’re saying?’ If you wither or blather, you’re lost. I thought those were character-building moments for me.”

Love for his creation:

His perfectionism raged. He was obsessed with minute details that no one else in the computer business was even slightly concerned about. Even the hidden electronic guts of the Next computer – the “motherboard” – had to have a clever, visually appealing design. “Who’s ever going to see the inside?” one of the Next designers asked. “I will,” Steve said.

Double dating with BillG:

Heidi, who was single and had a crush on Steve, realized that she could exploit his fascination with Bill Gates as a way of drawing Steve into accompanying her on social occasions. At the time, Bill was in a long-distance romance with one of Heidi’s closest friends, Ann Winblad, a brilliant self-made software entrepreneur who had sold her startup company for $15 million. When Bill was in town, the foursome – Bill and Ann, Steve and Heidi – would meet in the city and go out for what Ann thought of as “double dates.”

The right people:

Steve was fanatical about hiring the best people. He said that they would interview one hundred people for every one whom they finally chose. And he would fill positions with people who were massively overqualified. The example that everyone talked about was a reputedly brilliant guy named Alex, a young hipster who had made it to the middle ranks at Apple. He had an undergraduate degree from Harvard. He was an art collector. His colleagues found him fascinating. He came to Next. Maybe he would become a marketing executive? A project manager? Steve made him the receptionist. The offer was something of an insult, but he took the job just to get in the door.

Apple of his eye:

His Pixar shares remained the sole source of Steve’s wealth. By turning down the board’s repeated offers of large blocks of Apple stock, Steve Jobs forfeited a paper profit of upward of $1 billion. He still worked at Apple for $1 a year, saying that he only took that dollar so his family would qualify for the company’s health plan. his old friends said that Steve was intent on making a statement, showing that he was saving Apple because of love, not money.

They’re actually many more passages that I liked, but I think I’ll stop here.

If you’re even remotely interested in Apple/Steve Jobs or simply have an iPod, then this book is definitely worth a read. It’ll make you appreciate your Macs and iPods that much more

Interestingly, Sriram just made the 1,000th comment on my blog.

Btw, Sriram joined Microsoft last month (in Hyderabad) as a PM in the DevTools team.

To Sriram : blogs.msdn.com/sriramk doesn’t seem to be taken yet

Mulayam Singh Yadav says that English is the “the language of destruction, which has had a telling impact on the economy of India”.

It actually reminded me of an incident a few years ago. My family and myself were on a trip (somewhere in Karnataka, I don’t remember the actual destination) and on the way, we stopped by a lake. There was a huge commotion there. Somebody drowned. He was a student and had come with his friends from North India.

There was a warning sign in front of the lake not to enter the lake because it is dangerous. But it was written in Kannada. Those students couldn’t read or understand it. When his friends discovered that one of their group is drowning, they started shouting for help. A few people came rushing in but they didn’t understand Hindi, so they didn’t understand what was going on.

When my father and myself went to ask what was going on, the localite spoke to us in Kannada and said that if he knew about the drowning person, he could’ve jumped into the lake and saved that person, but he didn’t understand what the students were shouting about.

Now, consider this. If both of them knew a common language, wouldn’t a person’s life been saved?

That common language happens to be English in India. Now, imagine these kind of scenarios on a scale of 1,080,264,388 … we would have had utter chaos.

I hope people (like the person in question) forget their so-called ideologies and adopt some pragmatism instead.

I read Michael Crichton’s State of Fear last week. The story starts regarding George Morton, a millionaire philanthropist who supports the National Environmental Resource Fund and other such organizations … then a series of strange events happen with a racy pace. It even includes a trip to Antarctica.

At the end of it, you learn that global warming is a myth. Seriously. Crichton has done lot of research and points to so many real scientific papers, out of which many indicate that nobody really knows whether the current earth’s warming trend is natural or man-made, despite what many environmental organizations or industry organizations want you to believe.

It is best summed up in Appendix 1 “Why Politicized Science Is Dangerous”:

Imagine that there is a new scientific theory that warns of an impending crisis, and points to a way out.

This theory quickly draws support from leading scientists, politicians, and celebrities around the world. Research is funded by distinguished philanthropies, and carried out at prestigious universities. The crisis is reported frequently in the media. The science is taught in college and high school classrooms.

I don’t mean global warming. I’m talking about another theory, which rose to prominence a century ago.

Today, we know that this famous theory that gained so much support was actually pseudoscience. The crisis it claimed was nonexistent. And the actions taken in the name of this theory were morally and criminally wrong. Ultimately, they led to the deaths of millions of people.

The theory was eugenics, and its history is so dreadful – and, to those who were caught up in it, so embarrassing – that it is now rarely discussed. But it is a story that should be well known to every citizen, so that its horrors are not repeated.

Now we are engaged in a great new theory, that once again has drawn the support of politicians, scientists, and celebrities around the world. Once again, the theory is promoted by major foundations. Once again, the research is carried out at prestigious universities. Once again, legislation is passed and social programs are urged in its name. Once again, critics are few and harshly dealt with.

I am not arguing that global warming is the same as eugenics. But the similarities are not superficial. And I do claim that open and frank discussion of the data, and of the issues, is being suppressed.

I give the book a 10/10 rating. Don’t miss it.