Flight trip

Took a cab to the airport. All those allegations about cabbies speeding, flouting traffic rules, generally driving rashly - all true!

People milled about - more men than women, more business travellers than families, an odd man wearing a shirt out of superman costume. There were flights every fifteen minutes. I could see the previous flight speeding up on the runway. My flight started to get on. And all of a sudden I saw another flight landing practically under the nose of this flight. I wondered if this was one of those near misses the TV journalists keep talking about. The rest of the flight was better. The steward was handsome and they gave buttermilk.

Chennai airport was much better. I finished my Georgette Hayer mystery - solved it before the detectives. Eyes nervously at a white guy who was swaying curiously in his seat. Later saw him eyeing a purdah clad lady equally nervously.

Iron Jawed Angels

Spent another night watching a movie. Iron jawed angels. The subject of women suffragettes fighting for their rights in the beginning of the century at the onset of the war is so powerful that it is inevitable that the movie is good. The backdrop of a war that a President was declaring to fight for democracy outside the country while ignoring the call for voting rights for women is indeed most ironic. It would have been ludicrous if it were not so sad. There is a splendid scene when Alice is asked by a psychiatrist [who is sent to find her insane] to explain her cause. Alice, played by Hillary Swank, starving on a hunger strike asks with genuine puzzle - "what's there to explain?"

The political machinations ["I never thought they'd picket a war time president"], political images ["We don't want the President to be spanked"], the condescension [the way President Wilson talks to Carrie Chapman Catt - one can hear the words 'little lady' hovering near his lips], the arrogance [the sailors beating up the women picketing peacefully] were all splendidly captured. I should see if there is a biography on Lucy Stone.

Arlington Road

After a really long time, caught a movie on TV. I like Jeff Bridges and Tim Robbins. K-Pax, Shawshank redemption are some of my all time favourites. So I decided to watch this movie. It had some interesting ideas and a very unexpected and clever ending which could have been played up a bit. Its a pre-9/11 movie and it shows. Its unlikely a movie such as this would be made now.

I must check if I can get 'Mirror has two faces' DVD. On the romantic comedies genre, its one of my favourites. It has that fantastic song - 'My favourite line was can I call you sometime!'

Third class

I usually travel by third class in train. I'd make lofty statements like - 'that's where I see real people and have interesting conversations' etc. This Christmas weekend I deeply regretted my stupidity. Perhaps I should become a decadent capitalist that SRP keeps accusing me of. I tried to make it abstract by thinking about the sociological causes and implications of the filthy compartment and then pragmatically draped a newspaper and climbed onto my middle berth.

I woke up to the sounds of the peddler with his milk can early in the morning. SW, an American, raved about the 'small entrepreneurs' in third-class compartments when he was here last. I decided their enterprise has to be admired, after seeing him get off with an empty can in the next station and hop on deftly to another train going in the opposite direction.

Popularity

This time it is for a product, but usually google folks congratulate themselves on a good search too. It would be something along the lines of some stranger approaching an employee or an email from some exotic location specifying how a google search saved someone's life. I find it very amusing. Unless other search engines didn't turn it up, isn't the congrats due to the general power of internet?

Either way, people seem to be associating google with the information it catalogues for us. And also because google is returning it, there seems to be a general consensus for trusting the information. Kishore's lawsuit and Zawodny's blog. If you go by the basis of page ranking, this would mean that popularity equates by a stretch to legitimacy or maybe even authenticity.

But then again wasnt that the case even before the internet?