Random thoughts – TheRajBlog

Hermès Birkin craze!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/the-crazy-economics-of-the-world-s-most-coveted-handbag/ar-BB1oI6CL?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0S_k8dfS-t-H69sn8AFTEfFgKtWDGnFCW_nrkjXIHPPL1EEsbPhhjGk8s_aem__5gjvF9JM69SVcSZef5lKg

The Birkin people certainly spend different from working people!Wondering if the buyers of the Birkin agonize over what is worthy enough to be carried in their Birkins!

Few days ago attended a concert featuring noted vocalist Sikkil Gurucharan. The concert was based on the wildly popular “Jannal Orum” concept pioneered by Sikkil Gurucharan who is one of the young, recognized and well received singers in the classical South Indian Carnatic music genre. The concert was enjoyed very much by music connoisseurs and the less knowledgeable alike because of the format 👍. A little background about Jannal Orum origin: In the wake of the COVID pandemic, which affected everyone directly or indirectly, public concerts were not possible because of lockdowns. “Jannal Orum” in Tamil means by the side of the window. The singer found himself standing by (and looking out) the window of his home many days and singing songs, not sure when the situation would return to at least a semblance of normalcy. At that time, in an effort to reach out to eager listeners, he started the Jannal Orum series and posted on youtube. Each video in the series would be based on a theme and Sikkil Gurucharan would identify and explain movie songs on the chosen theme that was based on a classical raga (Raga = melodic framework in Indian classical music). It became wildly popular as everyone, irrespective of their knowledge level of classical music, could understand and appreciate because of familiarity with the movie song. The keys to success being keeping it simple, making it accessible and augmenting by easily understood explanation. 👍

Towards the end of the concert it was time for audience requested songs. One of the requested songs “Aasai Mugham Marandhu Pochey”. Before starting the song Sikkil Gurucharan gave some background information about the song. It’s written by celebrated Tamil poet Mahakavi Subramania Bharati. The poet had lost his mother at a very young age and one of his most prized possessions was a fading black and white photograph of his mother. That picture was lost in a fire at his home. The poem/song is a lament on losing the last physical memory of his mother. It’s a very touching tribute to a person he held very dear to his heart. So, the context in itself lends to pathos. Penned by a great poet the loss almost bestows a quality of personal loss to the reader of the poem or listener when sung. In Sikkil Gurucharan’s rendition the feeling of loss immediately came alive. When great lyrics combines with heartfelt rendering by a very talented artiste bringing the emotions to the fore it creates a moment and a memorable moment it was! 👏 As soon as the song started my eyes started welling up 😢 and as the song progressed, I had to wipe my eyes a few times. Youtube link to song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxoAyj9jzro
This song was followed by another song praising the virtues of South Indian filter coffee, in a lighter vein. I wonder how singers are able to sing a very emotional song with a lot of passion and not choke up. I guess talented professionals have the ability to seize the moment and let it go too! After the concert ended we went up to the stage to compliment the young musicians that accompanied the main artiste, thank the main artiste for a very enjoyable experience and were able to capture a Kodak moment with Sikkil Gurucharan. Emboldened by his accommodation of our request for a picture with him I requested an autograph. I had not planned before on asking for autograph. Desperately I fished out the only piece of paper I could find in my wallet with just enough whitespace on one side for an autograph. 😂 With a bemused look at the scrap of paper I had handed over the well-natured singer willingly gave his autograph. That makes “Aasai Mugham” his signature song for me! 😊

Word of the day: Conscience

Splitting the meaning of the word conscience into two.

For those who believe in conscience it’s a guiding force that influences their behavior and choices.

For those who don’t believe, conscience = con+science. Meaning there is no scientific basis for it, no rationale to have one. In other words, it’s an unnecessary impediment to achieving a person’s goals.

Conscience is one of those things which is experiential as it doesn’t have a physical manifestation 🙏

Signs of getting older? 🤔

Seeker: What are the signs of getting older? 🤔
Sage: If you wake up early on a cold, wintry Saturday morning, like any working day, to pose this question! 😊 or
Seeker: Or what? O learned one 🙏
Sage: If you wake up early on a cold, wintry Saturday morning to read this post! 😊 and
Seeker: And what? O wise one 🙏
Sage: If you wake up late on a working Monday morning wishing it was Sunday morning instead! 😂
Seeker: Thanks for being so perceptive and sharing your knowledge 🙏

Restless Mind

Torrent of thoughts,
Cascade of words,
Calm down restless mind,
Channel the flow,
Go slow 🙏

Giving Day words bonanza

On this Giving Day words bonanza heads your way but only fighting words come to mind. Let me list the words, their meaning, and a story to weave in the words. No pictures, no emoticons, let the story paint the picture. A pleasant picture it may not be, but it is what it is.

Pugilist: a boxer, especially a professional one
Cocky: boldly or brashly self-confident
Plucky: having or showing determined courage in the face of difficulties
Haymaker: a forceful blow
Crocky: impaired in one’s powers, physically frail
Sucky: very bad or unpleasant
Geriatric: relating to old people, especially with regard to their healthcare
Gibberish: unintelligible or meaningless speech or writing; nonsense
Constitution: the composition of something

Here’s the story

The two pugilists, fighting for the biggest prize in the sport, stumbled their way through the fight. Billed as the “Heavyweight Fight Of The Century” it was promoted as a battle between Cocky and Plucky. Cocky was supposed to be the ultimate counter puncher and Plucky the consummate technician, biding his time and waiting for an opening to get his punches in. Trash talk was in plenty and attempts to throw haymakers were many but all of them ended connecting thin air. By the time Round 1 was over, all those who had paid big bucks for a seat to see the fight in person, were wishing that the fight would be brought to an end immediately. The spectators were unanimous in thinking the fight should have been promoted as one between Crocky and Sucky. Hoping to watch left hook and right jab the spectators were instead left shook and paying for a tab that didn’t seem right. By the time Round 2 started, even the ringside judges, tired of all the trash talk and low blows, were thinking of DQing both the fighters, who were well past their prime and should have hung up gloves for good many monsoons ago. Those who were covering the fight realtime had scathing words to describe what was on display. So sluggish were the fighters the writers thought a geriatric ward was a better place than a boxing ring for the fighters. The inane chatter and gibberish that was supposed to be trash talk was compared to the level of 5-year old. Not surprisingly, elder folks and young children took offense to this description. Couple of 90-year-olds completed 100 push-ups without breaking a sweat and a few 5-year-olds recited the Iliad end to end perfectly even while playing video games on their preferred gaming system. Since we are talking about a blood sport it’s a good time to talk about the fighters’ own blood. Well, they were not at all interested in the sport and were more focused cashing in on their father’s name and (in)fame. The quality of the fight was so bad, it left the long departed original creators of the sport, revered as Founding Fathers of the sport, turning in their grave, sensing the grave danger to the sport. When they originally framed the rules of the sport they had emphasized the importance of sound constitution and mind for those taking part in the fight. The Founding Fathers were dead, right, but is it fair to expect them to be dead right forever?

What’s the deal with #3?

Novak Djokovic. José Carreras. George Harrison.
All part of a famous group in their field.
Novak Djokovic’s name will forever be associated with Nadal and Federer.
José Carreras’ name evokes memories of Luciano Pavarotti and Plácido Domingo.
George Harrison, important member of the Beatles along with John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
All very accomplished, yet, not having the same name recall or reverence or affection as the other members of the group they are clubbed together with. 🙁

That set me thinking. Does it have anything to do with being the third member in a group, anything with being #3?
Solo George went “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”,
Novak can’t seem to buy much love.
Is it a variation of “Two is company, three is a crowd”? It’s as if there is a reluctance to welcome a 3rd member into the fold.
Talking of fold, it’s easy to divide a regular shaped paper into two or even four parts just by lining up the edges but dividing equally into 3 parts takes some effort to get it right. One third of one (1/3) yields recurring decimals unlike 1/2 or or 1/4. Could lack of division equally be a reason for reluctance when it comes to 3? In the Olympics the top two finishers are awarded gold and silver medals while the 3rd place finisher gets bronze. Gold and silver are considered noble metals while bronze is an alloy. It’s as if 3rd place finishers are supposed to have mixed feeling and not experience unalloyed delight. Why not award platinum, gold and silver instead as these metals are classified as noble metals. In some Olympic events, like martial arts and combat sports, two bronze medals are awarded to losing semi-finalists with no contest for 3rd place as though it’s not worth it. Even TV stands for smart TVs now come with 2 legs instead of 3 as if 3 upsets the balance. In the Senate a two-thirds vote is considered as supermajority which translates into 67 votes out of 100, leaving behind 33, hitting the number 3 with a double whammy. Will #3 ever get a fair shake?

Word of the day: Numismatic! 💰

It’s been a while since I last posted on word of the day. Keeping in mind time is money, today’s word is numismatic. The dictionary definition of numismatic is “relating to or consisting of coins, paper currency, and medals”. When I went shopping recently, I got a Wheat Penny as change, among other coins. This penny grabbed my attention as it looked different from more recent coins. It’s a 1953 Wheat Penny. “Wheat” is a reference to two ears of wheat on one face of the coin. Out of curiosity I googled and learned that wheat pennies, also known as Lincoln Wheat Cents or the Lincoln Penny, were first minted in 1909 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. They were minted up until 1958 and feature a portrait of Abraham Lincoln on the front and wheat on the reverse.

My interest in coins piqued again after many years, I looked at the pile of coins accumulated at home over the years and also searched online for information on coin collection and what kind of coins/currency serious numismatics look for. The value of an individual coin depends on a few factors: vintage (how old it is), rarity (supply), quality (coin condition – uncirculated, mint, fair etc.), metals used (quarters minted 1964 or earlier command higher value due to their high silver content), special occasions (A bicentennial quarter, minted to celebrate 200 years of American Independence, may be valued higher than face value by folks who would love to have a physical representation of that event celebration in the form of a coin), specific defects in limited batch/batches of minted coins (For example, some 2004 Wisconsin State Quarters are valued high by collectors because of a defect that resulted in extra husk/leaf in the corn cob that’s on the quarter). Hey, I am Wisconsin-based, so it’s got to figure in this post one way or the other, right? 😂 Any coin value may also depend on another X-factor: determination of a serious coin collector to get a specific type of coin (It could be something like desire to have a complete collection, like coins of specific denomination minted in a particular decade).

Back in the last millennium (Man, I sound ancient now 🤣) when I was based in California, I bought some coins from The Littleton Coin Company. I guess I must have been interested in getting some loose change at that time 😉 I knew I had those coins somewhere in my home, but I did not remember where those coins were. I started on a quest to locate where those coins were after 25 years in my possession. 😊 After going through multiple boxes with documents I managed to find those coins. I had also bought some South Korean coins and paper currency (possibly because they were packaged well in the form of a scroll 📜) when I traveled over the Pacific to India from California with a layover at Seoul airport. A fringe benefit accrued in that process. Quite a few documents dating back up to couple of decades ago that were no longer required found their way to the paper shredder at last ✅ Among the coins I had bought were a 1900 Liberty Nickel, a 1905 Indian Head Penny, a 1937 Buffalo Nickel, a Susan B Anthony gold plated $, a Kennedy half dollar. There were couple of $ coins too, I think those coins feature Eisenhower. I then casually checked online the value of the coins that I bought or those that I retained because they were not common. Found that they were not valued much higher than their face value. I did kind of expect that. My reasoning was that if I bought a coin that was relatively easily available and did not cost me the moon there is a good chance it wouldn’t command lot of premium. That’s fine too. 👍

Moving on to other discoveries in my quest. The coins of old seem to age much better and more gracefully 👌than recent coins. Similar to well-built old homes that appear to have more character than a newer home that might have been built using cheaper materials. The quality of coins going down is to some extent understandable in the sense one of the factors in producing a coin must be the cost of producing compared to its face value. For example, a penny of today costs more to produce and buys lesser than days of yore. So, metal mix of coins are changed from time to time. State quarters started getting minted circa 1999. At that point in time, out of mild interest, I set aside a quarter of any new State aside in an attempt to have one of each State, if possible. Had not cared to follow much the changes in quarters in recent years. Imagine my surprise as I looked at the coins that were lying unused in my home to find that quarters in the past decade or so have been featuring historically significant events like George Washington crossing the Delaware river, people of significance and achievement in different fields of human endeavor like writing, improving race relations, war heroes and places of interest in different States of the country. 👏 I was surprised to discover a quarter featuring the US Virgin Islands because I had not noticed it earlier even though it’s not that rare. One of the fringe benefits of studying the coins has been discovering places of interest that have been featured in the coins and add them to potential places to visit in future. 😊

An important consideration for engaging in an activity for me, be it building or fixing things or pursuing as a hobby like growing plants or collecting coins, is being able to do it on my own. Meaning, with no little or no external dependency or needing another person. Of course, for building something I would still depend on the instructions. For fixing something I may still look for a youtube video. Activities indoors also have the added advantage of being able to do on a bad weather day at home when outdoor activity may not be possible. My rummaging through coins accumulated over years may not have yielded a million dollars but I got more than $50 when I got those deposited in the bank where I used the coin sorter. 👍 Hey, one extra penny is 100 x one million times closer to a million dollars 😊 By getting back those coins in circulation I might have contributed my little bit to reduced mining for metals as more supply = lesser new production. That matters too! 🙏

What is justice? 🙏

Fair play and justice have always been of high significance for me whether it be sports, politics, business, education, law or in other walks of life. In times when folks with money and power push the envelope on what is considered legal/acceptable, get away with it and are admired for that and repeat offenders are treated like folk heroes 👎 expecting fair play and justice not realistic always I realize. Basic honesty and decency should not be too much to expect though. I like watching shows like “Dateline”, “20/20”, “48 Hours” to see how the investigative and judicial process works. The most heartening shows are those that feature investigators’ dogged pursuit of truth by collecting evidence and pursuing leads assiduously, lawyers arguing the case based on evidence bringing closure to affected families and reinforcing belief that the wheel of justice does move even if at times very slowly 👏. The most heartbreaking shows are those where closure for affected families means just holding on to memories of victims or to objects associated with the victim/s like a pendant, sweater or a glove due to lack of physical body. 😢

It’s fascinating to look at the process and the players involved in the pursuit of justice. In criminal justice system the guilt of the accused is to be proved beyond any reasonable doubt. The reason is to minimize the possibility of accused person getting punished if he/she is actually innocent. I have wondered how some of the people involved in the process approach their work. Let’s consider a few

1) Cops/Investigators: They should have an open during the course of investigation while collecting evidence and following all promising leads. Does their training and experience help them keep their biases and emotions aside and check out all leads, especially if they have a suspect with the motive and means to commit the crime? Does the desire to take quick action against perpetrator/s come in the way of doing a thorough investigation?

2) Prosecution team: In trying to build case against the accused would they prefer to ignore any and all evidence that may not fit their case? Would they simply go ahead with their case and have the defense team poke holes in their argument/case?

3) Defense team: Is the only objective for defense to create reasonable doubt about the accused’ involvement? Would the defense team ask the accused to reveal everything relevant to the case to defense even if some of the facts may be detrimental to the accused’ cause OR would defense team clearly mention to the accused not to reveal any facts that may harm them (The defense team could then possibly claim no knowledge if unpleasant facts are unearthed by prosecution?). If there are multiple eyewitnesses to a crime and there is no doubt about guilt of the accused does defense lawyer’s training force them to still fight for a less stiff sentence by arguing temporary insanity for the client even if it’s not really true?

4) Jury: For serious crimes verdict is required to be unanimous. The jurors are likely to be from different backgrounds with different temperaments. Would aggressive juror/s bully and try to force other jurors (with different point of view) to agree with them? (If that does happen that would be like social media groups where a few attention-seeking and overly aggressive folks push their own agenda while ignoring or isolating those who disagree even if it’s for valid reason/s 😡)

5) Judge: Potential jurors are vetted for their biases before they are selected for jury duty to ensure their bias would not cloud their judgment. Is there a similar process in place before a case is assigned to a judge? For example, assume a judge is an avid biker and the case involves a hit-and-run involving the death of a biker. Would the judge subconsciously sustain or overrule objections based on their own likes and sympathies?

There are also instances in criminal cases where the defendant may make “Alford plea” which amounts to a guilty plea by defendant in criminal court but does not admit to the criminal act and asserts innocence. Generally this happens when defendant thinks prosecution has made their case strongly and as a result jury is likely to return a guilty verdict. Alfrod plea appears like a compromise and a neither here nor there kind of deal (A civil case equivalent would be defendant settling the case without admission of guilt and have NDAs signed to prevent any further discussion of the case).

Is the meaning of justice different based on the role of a person in a trial? For a prosecution lawyer is “Guilty” verdict = justice? Likewise does “Not Guilty” verdict mean justice for defense lawyer? Should justice mean victim’s family and friends and the accused’ family and friends knowing the full truth?

The question that keeps haunting me is “What is justice?”🙏

Category: Random thoughts