premshree

Competition has always been perceived as a Good Thing. Take the airline industry in India, for example: there are tons of no-frills airlines; the bad ones have to improve if they to survive and all that crap. The same applies to the “regular” airlines (I swear I’ll stop flying Jet if they don’t improve in a few months; the only reason I fly them is because I have accumulated too many miles now).

I wish this whole competition-as-a-good-thing worked flawlessly everywhere. The other day I was just lazing around and then saw Mumbai Mirror lying somewhere. The front page had, in bold fonts and all that, something about one of their reporters in a police chase to trace two unidentified bags found at some place. And it had, making the reader heave an air of suspense-phrases, something like “turn the page to know what happened”. Surely you want to know what happened? Well, turns out the bags belonged to some member of Parliament. That was it. Really.

Who’s the brilliant editor one wonders.

So, I’m in Bombay (Ruby stuff), and wow, I’ve learned a few things:

• Maharashtra bans plastic bags.
• No more speed breakers in Maharashtra! Court order or something, says my brother. Not very sure, but, well, at least all the speed breakers in the suburb I live in have been flattened.
• No hawkers in Bombay! (I was looking for some dhabeli, couldn’t find any hawker.) To be honest, this does not make me entirely happy, though. I always felt that they were part of Bombay’s charm. I might be terribly wrong, yes, but then, umm, maybe not. Whaddya think?
• Mumbai airport’s got a facelift (facelift only, nothing else, but a lot of work is till in progress).

Anyway, mostly all good stuff.

Bombay’s all screwed due to the rains. My dad left office (Kanjurmarg) at 16:30 or so and reached home the next day at 05:00! As much as all this is messy, the rains are one of many things that make Bombay so much fun. Yeah, well, maybe too much is not fun, though. A friend just wrote in saying, “there are dead animals floating at some places, sewage water flowing into the roads, broken shanties and homeless people shivering in the cold.” That’s definitely not a good thing.

Flights to/from Bombay have been cancelled or delayed and stuff. Don’t know if I’ll be able to get to Bombay on Friday. For all you know, the conference might not even happen.

Update: Due to the rain situation in Bombay, the conference stands postponed until further notice.

Update: The conference will now take place on 27^th and 28^th of August.

So after a successful conference in Bangalore, Agile India comes to Mumbai. 29^th and 30^th July, 2005. It’ll be held at SPCE, Andheri. The initial list of proposals are here. I’ll be speaking on Ruby and agility.

I’m speaking on 29^th—Saturday. The rest of the day promises to be good. Don’t know what I’m doing Sunday.