ECONOMIC WAR ON THOSE WHO CRITICIZE: THE 'CASHEW-AL' WAY

Hello World,

While I am preparing my next vomit on Arthashastra, I went through the 2018 Budget documents and I have an observation to share with you. Let’s get started.

We will begin with an exhibit:

The 2018-Budget proposes to reduce the customs duty for the import of cashew nuts by 50%. What used to be 5% is going to become 2.5%. Cashew is high value crop and 50% slash is a significant gain and this is expected to make the import of cashew from international markets into our country much cheaper than what it used to be.

Usually, when two countries agree to help each other economically, they ease the selling of each others’ products and services in their respective territories. Also, when the nation needs a raw material for a specific product which also has to be affordable to the citizens, the administration usually relaxes the import duties and enables the market players to take advantage of the margins.

In an effort to understand the story behind I googled to find who the top producers of cashew nuts are. 

Fun fact: We are one of the top-3 producers!

Here’s a set of screenshots to indicate that:

I started wondering why cashew imports need to be relaxed in a country which is already in the top-3 producers list. The reasons are simple:

If cashew imports are relaxed:

1. The local producers will have to face international competition and might not necessarily win the price war. 
2. The local farming economy will face the brunt given that they are already producing the some of the major quantities, globally.

I wanted to know how big the local cashew farming economy existed and I landed at this:

So, 5 out of 7 states in the Top-6 Cashew Producers List are Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu, Kerala and Karnataka. The others marked as top producers are West Bengal, Jharkand and Maharashtra.

If I look closely, most of these states have political rhetoric strongly criticising the current central administration and the political party that is running it. In essence, what I see is an economic war being waged against states who are not willing to collaborate with the political party running the central administration right now.

I might be wrong but here’s my set of questions:

Why is that cashew is the only agri-produce whose import duty is slashed by 50%? 

How come the crop which comes from select states with a similar political rhetoric can be imported for cheap? 

Is this an economic war against the farmers of the regions where political ideologies don’t necessarily match with that of the current central administration?

While I pondered this, scrolling through the budget document, I came across this:

National program from the central budget aiming at air pollution is something that needs to be lauded with a open heart. Such programs make the place a bit better for future generations. In this case the program directly aims at reducing the loss to the agricultural-economy as a result of air pollution.

However, why do such ambitious programs exclusively cover select states from the country?

This to me means that, the air-pollution-driven death and health hazards faced by citizens from the other states of this country is perfectly ok. 

The priority is just those states which face the MOST POLLUTION. You see, pollution is not bad. MOST POLLUTION is alone bad. Only those who face MOST POLLUTION are superior humans and deserving citizens for a centre-driven program. This is how the best brains work in this country as of now and I cannot imagine of an award that I can recommend the brains who voted these neuro-superior-homo-sapiens who are deeply passionate about protecting just those superior humans who face the MOST POLLUTION in this country.

For some reason, the states who stand to face the economic brunt of cashew imports do not match or even come close to the states included in the air pollution program. 

So some states can have cleaner air and no competition from foreign agri products while others can breathe more monoxides and eat unsold cashews until death. 

The reality might be something very different from the grim picture I paint here. 

The questions are: 

Is it, really?

At What point do we admit the fact as a fact?

Best regards,

STOP THE GENOCIDE AT WANG'S KITCHEN, NOLAMBUR, CHENNAI!!!!!!

Hello World,

IMAGE SOURCE: http://www.burrp.com/chennai/wangs-kitchen-mogappair-listing/416547 

Yes, Long time, No see and I do have a lot to share. However, the circumstances are such that there is a genocide about to happen and I need to stop it.

This is a scream after a visit to The Wang’s Kitchen in Nolambur, Mogappair. 

Set up in the first floor, outdoor stairs leading to the reception, dim yellow lighting enhancing the all familiar Wang’s branding themed in red, the restaurant has a curiously entertaining interiors with downward flight of stairs leading to the dining area where the tables are arranged.

That’s the end of anything and everything positive about this shithouse that might have poisoned me and other guests with possibly the worst zombie-dying microbes ever to have originated in Mars. The problem is, the restaurant is still in operation which means a section of this generation has already been zombie-fied!

Me and my brother-in-law ordered 1 chicken momo, 1 Tshing Hai chicken fried rice [It had a chilli next to it], 2 Egg Fuyong, 1 chicken spring roll and 2 Lemon Mint Coolers.

Chicken Momo:

6 pieces of twisted flour-shit filled with meat paste lay on our plate, frozen and still thawing, drops of dew on it, while some grated cabbage scraped of the kitchen floor lay accidentally on the plate, not knowing if they were part of this evil scheme that aims at eradicating mankind off this section of the multiverse. 

I have a certain amount of tolerance for odd tasting food and still I could not tolerate this seemingly quarter boiled tumour from a dying cat’s gut. My brother-in-law quit after the 2nd piece and it was just me and the momos staring each other for the final showdown. Trying to avoid food wastage I went through the regurgitating experience, hoping, the rest of the meal will serve as the antidote for this slow poison. I was wrong by a million light years in every wrong direction possible.

Tshing Hai Chicken Rice:

The bowl had a mix of rice and vermicelli, which were straight from the dumpster, along with orange coloured pieces of what I am calling chicken and my brother-in-law refusing to believe my guess. The rice had a few shreds of green beans and carrots, again, possibly from unwashed bowl. The moment the bowl landed on our table, we understood the technology, importance and significance of gas masks. We sincerely wished we were better off in a world war, on the ground, during an air raid involving nerve gas. We are absolutely sure, we would have enjoyed sweet death  more comfortably that the smell from the fried rice bowl that deactivated our olfactory capabilities for ever. It doesn’t make sense to live without a sense, especially when the causation smell came from nonsense called Tshing Hai chicken fried rice. I am sure the food tastes awesome but what Wang’s at Nolambur served was worthy of 35 counts of genocide under the influence of Mutating Momos.

The thing had rice and vermicilli or rice noodles in it and so we figured, we can cover up the death-smell and coma-inducing flavour with ketchup. We just did not foresee the operational challenge that was waiting to crash and burn on us. The waiter took a millennium to deliver the ketchup, by which time, we had committed our version of culinary Harakiri. We were already half dead from the Momos. We were just trying to get done with it as soon as possible.

Egg Fuyong:

The fluffy fried egg dish which I used to remember from the other Chinese restaurants is forever gone from my mind. I am merely holding on the index of events like a post-dead vista operating system. What we got was freakin plain omelette with a few shreds of carrots and green beans and few litres of what we would like to assume as oil from the kitchen mist. The horror struck twice when the waiter stepped up to serve it making the egg-splash-vomit into pieces, essentially increasing the frequency of capital punishment for our taste buds. They were already corpses on our tongues. We just did not know why this chaos was manifesting such a design on our lives coming to a close.

Chicken Spring Roll:

The rolls looked just fine externally and the insides were also familiar. We were confused as to why the revival mechanism would enter the game with rules which was anyways more than half done. We got into a mindset that, we still had a chance to recover from whatever was happening to us and this time we were more wrong than Trump in most of his administrative decisions. Even when imminent death was staring at us, we had to compare our thoughts with those of Trump’s. What is the point of demoralisingly degrading our thought process when it was almost confirmed we needed to die? Why was not part of our agenda but we just had to include it. No reason identified yet.

The insides of the chicken rolls, as it turned out, are left-over chicken from earlier manchurian and kung bao massacres that might have inadvertently occurred in the Kitchen of Nolambur’s Wang’s Kitchen. We puked about 17.5 times inside our own mouths and our dying taste buds had to drown in it. Saw, Hostel and the remainder of gore fests seemed like emmy-winning sitcoms. The stench from the almost rotten chicken that was recapitalised to make our chicken rolls, felt like nothing. The reason it felt like nothing was, we were half dead and we were losing our senses one by one, we now were not caring if we could receive and process anything greater than 17% of environmental stimuli we were receiving. We just kept eating hoping it will be done soon.

Lemon Mint Cooler:

This, was the final dose of uplifting enlightenment coloured green and topped with ice and plastic mint leaves. The taste felt like pepsodent toothpaste squeezed into our nostrils while 80% methanol was pumped into our throats  using a firehose. We now realised we were on our way to the section of multiverse, hoping a horned gatekeeper might be there, asking for aadhaar cards and patanjali coupons for herbal painless redemption in the new world. We sincerely hoped that life did not include any food from Wang’s Kitchen.

SOS Call:

Please do not go this place and stop every human from getting caught into the institutionalised genocide, degrading everything that chinese culture stands for and the very concept of hospitality. Wang’s Kitchen Nolambur, please stop killing humans. Shut down this branch and beter, shut down the entire chain, if you think your chain serves standardised flavours across the network. No amount of yoga and herbal crap can prevent the slow death of those who walk by your establishment at Nolambur. If we call yours a restaurant, we will be insulting the entire hospitality/restaurant industry. 

Best regards,

HPSON: ACRONYM EXEMPLIFYING THE GREATNESS OF CHENNAI

Hello World,

This is not Chennai. This image is here because it helps drive the big-city idea in this post.

HPSON’s are rocking out Chennai as we speak! A new demographic covering broader age groups is fast growing in this southern metro!

Chennai, if often classified as a metro where nothing is happening and is considered dull by some who in my view do not understand what Chennai really is. HPSON’s are the new-age Chennaiites who are proving such assumptions wrong, left, right and center. 

You can find a HPSON pretty much every where in Chennai at any given time, day and night doesn’t really matter. Chennai is slowly evolving its own night-life and HPSON’s are adding the real flavour to it. HPSON’s are not only present everywhere, they make their presence felt in astounding ways. 

Their moves, their looks, their confidence! Boy are they an epitome of Chennai’s newfound greatness!

Chennai has long had and is continuing to have a rather conservative culture where we choose not to be loud. But times are changing and so is our great city’s vibe. Now the city is only as cool as its residents and not all of us are ‘In the Trend’ yet. However, just like how every century begins with a single digit score, Chennai’s new identity needs the early adopters to ‘Set the Trend’ and motivate change among the other Chennaiites. Guess who is Chennai’s new trend-setting early adopter group? HPSON’s!!!!! Hands down!!!

The flare of not caring to bother about tricky circumstances, the swiftness in moves, the confident approaches and the charisma they leave behind….HPSON’s have no match and I don’t think they will ever. They can only get new members which they are and HPSON’s are not going to be ignored anymore. In fact, they are becoming famous. People of all ages now want be a HPSON and are trying their best to do so everyday. Eventually, the way I see it, Chennaiites are going to crave to display their HPSON attitude!

So much happening in Chennai right now that a new demographic is demanding the acronym HPSON to be its primary identity.

HPSON stands for nothing but……

HELMET PODAMA SCOOTER OTRA NAAI!!!!!

In other words,….

THE DOG THAT DRIVES A SCOOTER WITHOUT WEARING A HELMET!!!!!

These nasty empty-headed nonsensical dinglebangs just hop on the scooter and assume the roads have no other user. They have so much confidence that they don’t realize they are alive because so many fellow road users hit their brakes on time!!!

Idiots of all age groups deliberately avoiding the helmet and riding a scooter are endangering the remainder of the Chennai traffic every second of their near-fatal mad-ride meltdowns they display on Chennai roads. You should look at the way they split lanes, the cuts they make and the turns they do. A blind monkey on PS4 for the first time will display better dexterity, composure and compliance.

Just because they think they can get through the traffic with confidence, HPSON’s put their lives in the best place possible, their earth-shattering fit-for-shit confidence! Not one HPSON realises how far the foot-pedal reaches to their side beyond the handlebar. Never did a HPSON care about their knees popping outside their vehicle dimensions. It’s almost as if they are mutating, and their conversion to X-MEN has begun with the deactivation and eventual evaporation of their brain and nerve cells. 

With such valuable intellectual prowess that dictates neglecting the helmet and intergalactic confidence that demands avoiding the use of indicators and hand signals, this HPSON demographic is fast growing in Chennai, and their mad riding of scooters without wearing a helmet is just around the corner to becoming Chennai’s culture, exemplifying the city’s greatness in directions never imagined by people with live brain cells.

On a different note, if you care for some intellectually challenging entertainment, checkout www.summamovies.com. 

Best regards,

LEFT IS RIGHT: VERBAL Vs. NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION

Hello World,

I have quite a few things to share with you but before I could put things together my brain got ambushed by what I would like to term as “Left-Right Confusion.” This has been gently frying my cerebrum, sautéing my brain stem and blanching my spinal cord and serving the “Nervous System au Freak Sauce” to my thoughts. Before I begin my rant, click here to download the pdf version (rough draft) of this post.

I am documenting this 1 year and 3 month long observation of a very weird social behavior of the people of Chennai, otherwise known as “Chennaite” (by the rest of the world) and “MadrasKaaran” by the people of Chennai.  My observation does include individuals (all total strangers to me) of both the genders and people from about all walks of life. I would however make a mention that this observation of mine does not necessarily conclude that all Chennaites exhibit this weird behavior but in fact this observation would like to be documented as an indicator of potential city-wide damage of the friendly communication habits in the future, assuming this continues and spreads to everyone. I am a Chennaite myself and I love my city and it is that love of my city that has prompted me to document my observation of the phenomenon that I think is seriously detrimental to the long-term well being of my beloved city. My mental GPS always hits a technical snag or an experimental error while navigating through routes that involves more than 2 left turns or right turns. So I always stop during my travel and ask someone on the road about the route to my destination and make sure I am on the right heading. It is this habit of mine that gave me the fantastic opportunity to meet and talk to different individuals in Chennai among whom I noticed this weird element of communication that I would like to analyze today. Thanks to all those who were generous enough to help me with the directions during these instances.

It is an internationally known and followed yet unwritten code for telling directions that calls for using hand signals and gestures to explain the route to someone who asks for one. The idea is usually to help the traveler/commuter to understand and remember the route to his/her destination. For those who have trouble understanding this please look at the pictures given below and thrust your face into the palm of your hand for not understanding it before. ;)

 

I don’t own the images shown above and here are the reference links for these:

http://www.iheartjapan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/directions.jpg

http://media.makeadare.com/img/57fac2944/image_4e4e9bba81.jpg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/radio/specials/images/1655_how_to_ask/2162146_directions_555x203.jpg

Observation

When I stop and ask someone on the road about the way to get to a specific spot in the city, the person almost always used his/her right hand to point to the right and said “…take the left….” (When the actual direction was indeed the right turn, as the hand signal had conveyed). Non-Verbal Rocks!!! ;)

Boundary Conditions and Isometricity

Why on earth would anyone with everything working right use the right hand to point to the right and ask me to take that left?

If the intended subject of the communication is actually “The Right,” why is “Left” being used verbally?

From a communication standpoint, the non-verbal communication is substantiated with the verbal declaration of what is being conveyed non-verbally, except the fact that the non-verbal and verbal communication elements completely contradict each other, rendering the purpose of the communication deviate away from the otherwise presumed purpose of helping the receiver receive and process the information effectively.

Our scope right here would be limited to the “Why?” element alone and discuss the possible reasons that we may identify.

Possible Reasons

1.       The person may be suffering from a neuro-developmental disorder namely Gerstmann’s Syndrome which has left-right disorientation as an indicative symptom. There may be other neuro-developmental disorders which may cause left-right disorientation and therefore let’s just stick with “Neuro-Developmental Disorder” and maintain things in the simpler sense.

2.       The person is already occupied mentally with something else that he/she could not possibly make out the connection between what he/she is intending to say and what he/she is actually saying (let alone the hand gesture).

3.       The person is contradicting his/her non-verbal communication with his/her verbal explanation on purpose, where the intention is to confuse or challenge the listener and let the listener struggle to interpret the actual message being conveyed.

4.       All the other million possible reasons put together and royally ignored due to their state of insignificance with respect to this post. ;)

Interpretation

I am no psychologist and this post is not diagnostic in nature and therefore I just have to waive the possibility of the neuro-developmental disorder. Even if I were to possess such intellect, the seconds-long conversation about simple directions may not have served as a suitable and comprehensive diagnostic tool. I guess the concerned individuals can recall how frequently they confuse right with left and I sincerely hope it does not put them in an alarm situation.

As for the “occupied-with-something-else” reason, why would someone with real working senses choose to involve in a communication while they are mentally occupied with something else (I mean to an extent where one cannot realize that they are saying something that is contradicting what they enacting simultaneously)? Assuming the person is occupied with something else and then proceeds to speak to someone, it would only mean that their brain would have cordoned off a minute section of itself for the conversation. But we must consider the fact that we are, in the end, only human and it is normal to confuse the left with right. The question however is that, what are the chances that almost everyone that I asked for directions might have been mentally occupied with something else, over a period of 1 year and 3 months?  It has to be mentioned that there were a few instances where the generous minds correctly mentioned the route to my destination without confusing left with right but these are clearly outliers that have to be gently ignored. Irrespective of one’s state of being “mentally occupied with something else,” is it not normal brain function to analyze what has to be conveyed prior to actually conveying it in any form of communication? We cannot demand the analysis of the “correctness” of the message since that would mandate a philosophical bent entirely based on idealism. We can however demand the analysis of the “consistency” of the message conveyed in verbal and non-verbal formats. In other words, one can verify their words and actions to make them consistent with each other. When the right hand is used to point to the right, the logical verbal form of the message would include a “right” and definitely not a “left.” I am sure even a dead duck would nod in agreement to this idea.

The brain chooses to listen to a question, process an answer and deliver it non-verbally and verbally, except the verbal part would completely walk up and down the ass of the non-verbal part which by some mysterious ways is attributed to the fact that the brain was occupied with something else. How the friggety frat is this even plausible? More than that how come this happens almost every time I ask someone for directions? Honestly, this analysis just needs more information which, as for the moment, is unavailable to me because I have no freakin idea about it.

As for the reason of “purposefully distorting information” during any communication, I have to say it is a rather interesting one to look at, for this really tells a tale about “short-span communications” between complete strangers in the Big City Ecosystem. I go on long rides on my motorcycle and most of the spots I ride through are comparatively rural. I ask for directions the same way I do in my city and I never had anyone confuse left with right or just threw random directions at me and let me figure it out. In fact the rural folk had the generosity to explain the route to me very clearly and most of them asked me if I had got it right. I thank them for their generosity to spare their time for me and even more, their cultural dominance over the city-dwellers in the effective communications context. The city-folk too are generous but not as proficient as the country folk when it comes to effective communication.

Now why would someone deliberately distort information during a communication and let the listener struggle to interpret the right thing? Why would someone say “left” when they are actually meaning “right” just because they want to be discreet to the listener and impose a sense of “nothing-is-free” when the nature of the conversation is not argumentative? In fact it is a simple case of explaining the directions to some lost traveler who has asked for directions. The very intent of such distortion is an indication of an element of misanthropy in a person’s socio-psychological construct. In other words, if the person deliberately succumbs to a self-imposed question of “Why should I be very clear with my communication?” and eventually distorts the messages conveyed, then it indicates a possibility of dust and rust in the top deck. If this is not the case, then what kind of Marijuana dipped in salsa causes someone to point to the right with their right hand and deliberately say “Left”?????? I am sure such a person would be no stranger to blue elephants in baggy pants playing banjos.

Concluding this rant, I would like to mention that I sincerely hope the right-left confusion does not spread like an epidemic. Whatever may be the reason, communicating effectively is a symbol of civilization and a platform for portraying one’s culture in terms of social behavior. While we are human and are bound to be occasional victims of mal-functioning perceptual and motor skills, it is a positive thing to keep attempting to communicate effectively and at times, help lost travelers find their way to the destinations of their choice.

It is interesting to note that there has been considerable academic research in the Left-Right Orientation topic. Find below the link to an online experiment created by Dr. Eric H. Chudler, who is the Executive Director of Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering and a Research Associate Professor in the Dept. of Bio-Engineering at University of Washington:

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/java/hands1.html

Anyone can put themselves through this test to find out to what extent they confuse the directions in their mind. I put myself through it and the results show that I fall under the 11% of the total responders so far who show a difference of 4-6 seconds between the two tests. Not too shabby… ;)

For those of you who might love to indulge themselves in something additional related to this topic, here are the links:

http://typeindepth.com/2010/11/mixing-right-and-left/

http://bodyodd.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/04/24/11359120-why-some-cant-tell-left-from-right?lite

http://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2012/04/cant-tell-your-left-your-right-you-neednt-worry-about-it

http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/Gerstmann%27s-Syndrome.htm

Next time you tell directions to someone, please make sure you say what you think or intend to say and make sure the other person has understood it. If we decide to take the pain of helping someone, let’s just do it in a complete sense and let fundamental physics live in peace. It is always wonderful to let Verbal and Non-Verbal communications stay on the same team.

On a very different note [a shameless plug], if you are interested in unique tamil short films, feel free to visit https://www.summamovies.com/. I couldn't tolerate the mass masala entertainers anymore and decided I will do my best to produce content with substance. I have a long a way to go as a producer and a start-up founder, but I am glad our journey has begun. I look forward to your support. Each film on our site costs INR 15. Thanks!!!

Regards,