my first video uploaded to the internet, ever

By sohum | Published May 4, 2012

I feel extremely wary of categorizing this under “Music” since it most certainly isn’t, but I don’t know where else it would fit. So, about 6 years ago on a summer vacation, I made the haphazard (and, no doubt, boredom-influenced) decision to lear how to play tabla. My mom asked for a contact through her singing teacher and I was all set up. This video, which I uploaded to Google Video back in the day, was shot about a month and a half into my learning. Although it is a pretty crappy tabla rendition, the sadder part about the whole deal is that I probably can’t play it this “well” anymore. Sadface.

Why this sudden jump to the past? Well, YouTube was like, “Hey dude, your videos from Google Videos are gonna be deleted. Wanna put them here?” And I was like, “Yeah, bro, that seems chill.”

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why i love windows phone 7

By sohum | Published April 17, 2012

The internet, in general, hates Windows Phone so I decided to write a quick post to explain why I’m completely smitten by the platform. For background purposes, the Nokia Lumia 900 is my fourth smartphone after a BlackBerry Curve 8310, the iPhone 3GS and, most recently, the HTC HD7S. I’ve been using the Windows Phone platform since about July 2011 (the HD7S) and there’s no looking back, for me. Let’s go into details.

It’s Freaking Beautiful

The UI is absolutely stunning. Yes, the screen resolution doesn’t allow for “retina display” and WP manufacturers have not entered the ongoing pixel arms race, but the actual presentation of the operating system is beautiful. Metro is easily my favorite user experience on any piece of software I’ve used. The large tiles are bold and bright and the sharp edges gives them definition. Compare this with the grid of tiny icons that iOS/stock Android presents you (along with a number-based notification system) and the difference is massive if you allow yourself to believe in it. Of course, iOS and Android are making strides with an improved notification system and widgets, respectively, but I’m a fan of the WP presentation. It’s sexy and utilitarian. If I want to check the weather, I just need to unlock the phone and the live tile tells me the current weather and the next two days. If I want to see if anyone has posted anything on my Facebook or tweeted anything at me, once again, the live tile grabs all this information.

Everything is integrated

When I was using an iPhone, I had:

  • My contact list on my phone
  • My music playing off of Spotify with the Spotify app
  • My Facebook notifications coming through the FB app
  • My Twitter notifications coming through the Twitter app
  • Any synchronization being done through the shitty iTunes interface
  • QR Code/barcode scanning being done through third party apps
  • Pandora for live radio
  • Shazam to do song recognition

And it goes on. I use my phone primarily to keep track of my social networks, to text my friends, to listen to music and occasionally make a call or two. All the above things I mentioned are integrated into the core Windows Phone operating system. When I first set up my phone, I logged into my Windows Live and Facebook accounts. This grabbed all my contacts and even matched them up with the relevant Facebook accounts. I did install the third-party Facebook app but I hardly use it (also, it is extremely buggy).

The Windows Phone search button (a dedicated touch button that can be pressed at any time) allows you to not only search for text but to scan a barcode or QR code or even listen to music. Yup, the Shazam feature is automatically built in. Pandora still needs a third-party app (wpFandora does an excellent job) but more importantly, all my music is tracked through the Music & Videos hub. This means that if I heard a song on Pandora and then listened to other stuff on my phone, I can easily find the track in my music history as if it were being played from the same source.

I cancelled my Spotify subscription in favor of the Microsoft Zune Pass, which is the same price. The advantages? I don’t have to use iTunes again, ever. I can’t put into words how huge this advantage is for me. I absolutely detest iTunes. Zune is a more than worthy replacement and is about 1,452,530 sexier than iTunes. You know how OS X has been building up all these “full screen, immersive apps” the last few months? Well Zune has been doing that since… well, a long time. Another positive of Zune Pass is that it is essentially iTunes, Spotify, Spotify Mobile and Pandora rolled into one. I can listen to any song on Zune through subscription, and I can download it to my phone and play it offline. Of course, if I haven’t downloaded a song, I can look it up and play it from the marketplace section on the phone and even download it and save it to a playlist. Without having to buy it. Without having to download Spotify. The Pandora equivalent is “Smart DJ”. You can search for any artist and click “Smart DJ” and it will start playing related songs. Sure, their algorithm is probably not as good as Pandora’s, but you can get started with it immediately.

The hardware and software are unique… “different”

I find it most hilarious that I’m using Microsoft software and being “different”. It seems like only yesterday when Apple was forcing “think different” down everyone’s throats. For those not in the know, Nokia is using the slogan “beautifully different” to drive Lumia sales. And it’s ironic, but Microsoft’s product offering here is really unique and different. The iPhone is now the go-to smartphone for most users and the marketing advantage that Apple had with Macs of having “something cooler than yours” has not carried forward to their phone product line. Everyone has an iPhone. Except those people who have Android, which, in my opinion, basically means that you want (/need) to tinker with your OS to customize it to your needs or you are just to cheap to buy an iPhone. Or you hate the fact that Apple makes minor improvements to their product every year and then sells it as if it’s the greatest new thing. Android buyers have the latest technology available at a low price now, instead of next year. Alas, it comes at the cost of a fragmented marketplace that is struggling to deal with all the different versions of the operating system on their hardware, now.

Windows Phone has a minuscule market share and one that Microsoft, I think, should increase only enough to become the Mac of the smartphone market. The Lumia 900 is a fine hero device because it’s not just Android hardware with the WP software on it, but a device built from scratch to match the sexiness of the WP7 operating system. Of course, MS has historically operated on volume so they are trying to give the device away for free to try and get it in people’s hands. I suppose this works, but at some point I think MS should try to make Windows Phone a luxury device, rather than the Dell of smartphones.

And finally, the negatives…

Of coures, there are several negatives with the platform. The two that have been brought up the most are (1) “there are no apps” and (2) “this is last year’s hardware”. Yes, the app offering is fractional compared to the iTunes App Store and the Google Marketplace (or whatever its name is, right now). And the bigger problem, in my opinion, is that most big-name developers don’t even consider developing for WP. Which is mindblowing to me, as a developer, because Microsoft’s developer suite (Visual Studio) is heads and shoulders above iOS’ (XCode or Mono Touch) or Android’s (Eclipse or whatever Java editor you choose to use). .NET technology has been around for ages and most developers already know how to code in it. One would expect there to be a lot more Windows Phone developers, but I guess they are driven by market needs.

But going back to the crux of the issue, yes, there is an app problem. Any Windows Phone user who tries to tell you otherwise is just lying to himself or herself. I want to play Draw Something on my Lumia. I want to be with the “in” crowd of whatever game ends up being the next viral craze. This is a work in progress and it’s only going to change if there is a sufficient shift in market share for Windows Phone. All that said, the apps for WP are legitimate in themselves. There are several really nice apps that take advantage of the Metro UX and understand Microsoft’s vision with the operating system.

The second negative is, in my opinion, mostly just FUD. Yes, current generation Windows Phones are babies compared to the technical specifications of Android. Isn’t there an Android phone out there which is going to be quad-core? And really, the first thing that comes to my mind is, “why the hell do you need four cores on your phone?” It sounds like either the developer SDK is not efficient or that the developers are dumb. Windows Phone works like a dream with a single core. Everything is snappy and I have encountered little to no lag. That said, I do think that a few of the software requirements/implementations could use improvement. For example, I’d like to have higher resolution graphics and better camera software. I’m hoping Apollo will change some of this. And if Apollo does include dual-core support, I can’t imagine how awesome the platform would be. If WP’s performance is already comparable with iOS/Android with a fraction of the cores, a multi-core experience is only going to be better (especially given that MS has software pedigree in developing successful multi-core operating systems).

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Alright, I’m gonna step off my soap box, now, since this was a fair bit longer than I expected. Keep in mind that these conclusions are drawn based off of my Lumia 900. A few of my opinions would be very different if I had been writing this article whilst using the HD7S, which is essentially just an Android phone with the Microsoft OS on it.

Feel free to comment with your opinion! I completely understand that my love of the MS offering is highly subjective. As with taste in music and preference for beer styles, I respect the fact that people like different things.

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mmmbop

By sohum | Published March 29, 2012

It has been a while since I posted my depressingly pessimistic piece, huh? Well, thankfully the air has cleared, the weather has become better and I almost feel the springiness of the supposed current season. A lot has happened in the last few weeks and a lot is gonna happen in the next few, so I decided to take a step back and deliver smorgasbord of updates.

Getting Swoll

Let’s start with the most recent updates. Just this Sunday I ran the Capitol 10K, which is Texas’ largest 10K (and possibly largest race?). The longest distance I’ve run competitively before is — 0 km. Yep, this was the first somewhat competitive race I’ve done. My previous runs in a non-competitive environment were a 7K in the first ever Mumbai Marathon and about 13 km to raise money for orangutans when I was back in Middle School. I’ve always wanted to get into running and when a buddy brought up 10K, I decided to make the leap. Armed with a fresh new pair of shoes, I couldn’t be stopped.

I didn’t train too hard but did run 4.5, 5 and 6.2 miles in the three Sundays leading up to the race, thus building my endurance up. Race day was surprisingly refreshing, despite the extremely hot weather. I managed to complete the 6.2 miles without stopping once and actually setting and resetting my 1-mile record with every split (except the last one). Maybe it was the adrenaline or the runner’s gel, but the run was relatively easy and I think I could have gone on for at least a couple more miles without too much struggle (I even sprinted the last half mile or so). The half-marathon is next in my sights.

The running of Cap 10K also coincided with the beginning of basketball season. While the hoops at NI leave a lot to be desired, the team I put together this season seems pretty legitimate. We’ve got two legitimate post threats, two defensive-minded forwards and me handling the ball. We dominated in the first game of the season to win 20-8. Our league is pretty tough, but I’m hoping we drop a maximum of 2 games and head to the winner’s bracket come tournament time.

Yeah, so I’m not really getting swoll… yet.

Laughing at all sorts of shit

I missed The Hunger Games screening because my friends decided to buy tickets when I was 10,000 miles away (thanks, guys!) but I did end up watching 21 Jump Street this week. The movie is freaaaaaking amazing. I got an abdominal workout watching it. My head was sweating from laughter. I didn’t even know it was possible for head sweating to occur from laughing. I feel enlightened. Now, I’m looking forward to the slapstick crass humor marathon that should be The Dictator. After all, Sacha Baron Cohen has a name to uphold (and I hope I spelled it correctly).

Also, this isn’t quite laughing, but I’m super-excited for Childish Gambino in about a week’s time! He was awesome when he did stand-up/performed last year at Emo’s. I’m pumped to watch him at a real venue (Stubb’s). I’m hoping to be celebrating a basketball domination next Thursday (we play a game at 5.15pm). Next week is going to be pretty much dedicated to listening to Camp over and over again.

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That’s all for now. I know all 4 of my readers are itching for some videos, so I should have some up soon. Look forward to some Madeon. He’s fucking legit.

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generally speaking

By sohum | Published February 15, 2012

I always get into a reflective mood around my birthday. More than the start of a new year, I think this is a better time to make resolutions and set goals, because it gives me a better idea of how I grew over one discrete year of existence. The reflective mood probably also has to do with the fact that my birthday is just 3 days before Valentine’s day and since I am invariably single during this time, I am in a particularly vitriolic state of mind.

So, year 25 of my life was, in general, a positive experience. I grew a lot and it was not only in circumference and weight (actually, I think I shrunk it both those departments). More importantly, I feel like I finally settled down in my job and my life and developed a friend circle that I can both depend on and have fun with. Mentally, I stopped taking myself so seriously and made an effort to be more extroverted, though there are still eons of room for improvement in that department.

There were just as many negatives, however. For one, I was pretty financially irresponsible. I fear that I am becoming the quintessential American consumer—purchasing all sorts of crap that I do not need and allowing it to pile-up in the various crevices of my apartment. I spent unspeakable amounts of money on dining and entertainment with friends. My only real investment in my financial future was irregular contributions to my savings account and consistent purchasing of employee stock. I did not maintain a personal budget and thus was prone to making bad consumer decisions. My attempt to rectify this has been to actually plan a budget for 2012 and tracking it week-to-week. Even if I do not stick exactly to my budget, at least I will have a smaller feedback cycle for when I am fucking up.

The second, and infinitely more frustrating, part of the last year of my life was the dearth of romance. Not that romance has been an integral part of many of the years of my life, or at least, successful and reciprocated romance, but I did make a conscious decision to make more of an effort. After having spent the majority of my college career being infatuated with a girl who was not only not interested, but ended up being not that great of a friend, I was more than ready to move on. Living with roommates for my first year of employment delayed this process since I didn’t have to feel the entire brunt of loneliness. Once I moved into a one bedroom, however, I realized that my social life was entirely in my own hands.

Now, the only problem was that I had to put myself into situations where I could actually meet women, since that would appear to be the required prerequisite to finding a woman who I was attracted to and who reflected that attraction. Unfortunately, my only existing avenues for such adventure were (a) the workplace and (b) the bar scene. This was not ideal since workplace romances are always tricky situations and I am always distrustful of the bar scene, telling myself it is because I don’t want to find some random at a bar (conveniently ignoring the fact that I am myself some random at a bar).

Neither of these situations really panned out. My workplace advances were pathetically rejected, leaving an expectedly awkward dangling friendship that took a while to repair. The bar scene prospects never panned out, probably because evidently all Austin bars are full of dudes and the ones that have girls seem to have ones that need to perennially run off to the restroom. Girls, you should get at least a little more creative with your rejection!

Around the time I was predicting, nay, expecting failure on both these fronts, I went ahead and created an account on OkCupid. The biggest step going into this was lying to myself that I was not as interesting enough in real life as I was on some website. It was probably after spending a couple of months sending 20-25 messages and receiving a response or two that I realized that, incredibly, I was more boring online than I was in real life. The ego blows continued. I have since concluded that the one thing OkCupid has going for it is that it is free. Unfortunately, since it is free, I feel like many of the girls on the site aren’t taking it seriously. And, talking with the one friend that I did make from that website (who is an extremely awesome platonic friend that I can now talk to about virtually anything), they are getting bombarded by hundreds of Neanderthal-writing-comprehension messages a day. These two theories combined, I am able to still sleep at night.

So where does this leave me in my current stage of life? Well, my problem in the earlier years of my life was the fear of rejection. For this reason, I would always take the time to get to know someone well before attempting to initiate a romantic connection. While I still do not believe this process is doomed, it has not panned out thus far. My continued rejection, both in real life and in the form of ignored messages on OkCupid signal that, unfortunately, rejection appears to be the norm. That kinda sucks, because I’m used to #winning and just being really awesome, generally speaking.

One of my close female friends from Rice suggested that I partake in more young professional activities. While I’m not exactly sure as to what this entails, I do realize that going out to a bar is not the most effective way to find someone interesting. For one, you usually can’t even hear what they are saying. I guess I will finally stop deleting the millions of emails I get every day from MeetUp and actually start attending some events. I’m also planning to volunteer (more?), especially at dog shelters. And I’m actually going to get a dog, after thinking about it for a year and a half. As a tweet from the @brotips_hq account put it best: “be the person your dog thinks you are”. Well, I don’t have a dog, so I’m going to rescue one and then hopefully enjoy some unconditional love. That’s my selfish reading of it, anyways.

Thank for reading! Feel free to leave comments but don’t expect responses. J

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[acoustic cover] hyfr by drake and lil wayne

By sohum | Published January 22, 2012

This weekend was somewhat productive musically. Probably because there was delicious beer involved. Today’s cover video is Drake and Lil Wayne’s Hell Yeah Fuckin Right (HYFR). Probably the hardest song I’ve done because of Drake’s opening verse which is kinda nuts. Not Busta Rhymes nuts, but more like, when does he breathe in? I’m hoping his production crew is just doing its job properly.

One of my co-workers actually requested a cover of this song. So I was like, “Yeah, no sweat. I got this.” Then I heard the song. Umm…

But it turns out it isn’t that difficult. In fact, the only line I (still) have trouble with is the third one… “Tuition is handled by some random n***a that live in Atlanta”. If you listen to the video, you will notice that I, true to form, royally screw up this line. Oh well, whatevs. Another thing you may notice is that I keep speeding up. I need a metronome or something, damn.

Alright, enough of an intro. Drake is coming to ATX at the end of February. I will not be going, mainly because I will be about 10,000 miles away in India, but probably because tickets would have been ridiculously expensive anyway.

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[acoustic cover] dance (a$$) by big sean

By sohum | Published January 21, 2012

It’s that time of the week where I once again demonstrate my lack of shame by putting up another substandard hip hop cover video. The victimized song today is Big Sean’s Dance (A$$). I don’t really feel that bad desecrating this song since it was pretty poor to begin with. And it was fun to desecrate.

This song is pretty much about Big Sean’s obsession with big booties. I’m not sure who advised him to obfuscate the word “ass” in the official title of the song because not even the radio versions feature the lyrics “a-dollar-dollar a-dollar-dollar”. It’s too bad; that would have been an extremely catchy hook. Speaking of the hook, it features the word “ass” repeated 24 times in a row. Each time. Given that the hook occurs about 3 times and that there are several other isolated asses thrown in here and there, this song features the word close to 80 times. Impressive.

Another fun fact about this song is the lyric “wobbledy-wobbledy”. Being as uneducated as I am in the history of hip hop, I thought Big Sean had coined this phrase. Then, I happened to be channel surfing when Fuse TV was playing a Lil Wayne video countdown. The video in question was Juvenile’s Back That Ass Up, which I had heard a countless number of times. However, at the end of the video, Lil Wayne broke into a “wobbledy-wobbledy-wo-bo-wobbledy-wobbledy” sequence. Further research yielded the song Drop It Like It’s Hot by Lil Wayne that actually features the aforementioned lyric in copious amounts. I hope you learned something new today.

Onto the song!

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[acoustic cover] freaks and geeks by childish gambino!

By sohum | Published January 15, 2012

Hey peeps. I bought a new video camera. It is a really shitty HD camera from Panasonic but it sure beats the video taken by my iPod Touch. So I’ve made the difficult decision to replace all my videos on YouTube with better versions. Better both because the quality of the video is better and also because I will not be fucking up the lyrics.

The first video that will be receiving this upgraded treatment is Freaks and Geeks by Childish Gambino. I already have 2 or 3 versions of this video up on YT (all of which are hidden, now) but I decided to go ahead and redo it anyway since I believe it was the first “rap” video cover I put up online.

Childish Gambino is an awesome rapper. Also known as Donald Glover, whom you may know from Community or such online skits as “Bro Rape” or “Spelling Bee”. Go check out his shit on YT if you haven’t already. I was introduced to this dude by a coworker back in early 2011 and ended up going to his show at Emo’s. The venue sucked but the rapper was awesome. I ended up buying tickets to his show at Fun Fun Fun Fest later that year and he did not disappoint. He also released a new album last year–Camp–which you should definitely check out (my favorite tracks are “Outside” and “Heartbeat”). I’m also going to his show at Stubb’s in April this year, so that’s gonna be awesome!

Anyway, this is a cover of Freaks and Geeks. I finally learned all the words. Do check it out and lemme know what you think. I mean, even if you hate it, I’m not gonna stop wasting space on the Internet posting my videos. So you might as well get your angst off your chest by way of YT comments. I’ve heard it’s very therapeutic.

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politicians and virgins

By sohum | Published December 12, 2011

Yay, video rewind time! My favorite videos this week have a political lean because I’ve been trying to educate myself a little more about the GOP candidates.

#1 Awkward first kiss of virgin newlyweds

There’s apparently a new “reality TV” show out called The Virgin Diaries. It’s about “real-life virgins” and how they go about everyday life. I don’t know why this seems like a show that anyone would want to watch, but I guess it is kind of the anti-Jersey Shore. This clip certainly did not convince me to begin watching the show…

 

#2 Ron Paul on Trash TV in 1988

Since we’re on the topic of trashy TV, I thought I’d share this video of Ron Paul that I had not seen before. In this 10-minute video. Ron Paul is on some really weird show in the 80s as a presidential candidate. In it, he’s trying to argue that the U.S. should end the war on drugs. Interestingly, he’s making the same argument in this race. The host of the show is extremely rude. I guess we’ve come a long way if the worst part about TV today is Jersey Shore and/or Fox News.

 

#3 Rick Perry Offending… Everyone

Last Wednesday, Rick Perry released a campaign ad titled Strong. In the four days since then, his video has managed to garner nearly 630,000 dislikes on YouTube. His video has the “achievement” of earning more dislikes than Rebecca Black’s Friday. It’s hard to fathom these numbers until you watch the video. And if you want more fun, there are a million remix videos available for your viewership.

 

 

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breaking down the rockets schedule

By sohum | Published December 6, 2011

Basketball is coming back, about a month behind schedule. The NBA announced their regular season schedule today and, unlike in recent seasons, decided not to screw the Rockets badly. Since I can’t wait for the season to begin, I’m going to go ahead and break down their schedule to get an idea of what we can look forward to.

Conference Breakdown

The Rockets will play 18 games against the Eastern Conference and 48 against the Western Conference. They play every team in the Eastern Conference once or twice and every team in their conference either three or four times. Looking at the Eastern Conference, they play the teams that made the playoffs last year only once each. That means only one game against the Heat, the Bulls, the Celtics, the Knicks, etc. This should be awesome. It’s a good year to be a bad team. The Lakers, for example, will have the Heat on their plate twice, as will the Mavericks. The three teams that the Rockets do play twice from the East are the Bobcats, the Wizards and the Raptors. These three teams scrounged up 79 wins between them last season.

On the Western Conference, though, things are a little tougher. Of the eight teams that finished above the Rockets last year, they play half of them four times, this season: the Spurs, the Thunder, the Nuggets and the Grizzlies. I am completely okay with that. The Nuggets is missing about half their team (although most of them should be back the last two times Houston play them), the Spurs are aging and the Grizzlies have to hold on to their contracts to remain competitive. The Thunder are scary, but the team will be done with them mid-March, which means they won’t be a nuisance when it comes to qualifying for the playoffs.

Opponent Winning Percentage from Last Season

Against the Eastern Conference, the average record of the Rockets’ opponents is .446. That translates to about 37 games over the course of a season. Very manageable. The same metric on the Western Conference is 0.532, which translates to 44 games won. 2 games above .500 while playing 16 games against teams with a better record than Houston last season? I’ll take it. Their overall opponent record weighs in at .508 (42 games). This happens to be just about their record last year, so Houston should be good to go.

Back-to-Backs

Back-to-backs have been the bane of the Rockets’ existence and this season the NBA is introducing something even more nasty: the back-to-back-to-back. The NBA announced yesterday that 7 teams would be playing more than one back-to-back-to-back this season. I was sure one of the lucky ones would be Houston. However, the league decided to be kind, this year.

The Rockets play 1 back-to-back-to-back affair and 21 back-to-backs. The toughest sequence is at the beginning, when Houston takes on San Antonio, Memphis and Atlanta in the last three days of 2011. The first and last of this sequence will be hosted at the Toyota Center, so at least that is some respite. The other back-to-backs are mostly harmless, although they do feature two bizarre sets where they play OKC and Denver home-and-away on back-to-back nights. I guess neither team has the advantage there…

30 of the Rockets games come after a 1-day rest, seven are after a 2-day rest, two are after a 3-day rest and they even have a 5-day rest, presumably coinciding with All Star Weekend.

National TV

Houston will have 7 games on “national TV”. The reason for the quotes are that all these games will be on NBA TV. Yup. Not a single game on ABC, ESPN or TNT. I guess I shouldn’t be too annoyed because this implies that they are going to be playing relatively weak teams. The national TV games are against the Magic, the Clippers, the Blazers, the Mavs, the Lakers, the Kings and the Heat.

Stretches

In terms of stretches, the schedule-makers have been kind, as well. Of the 33 away games, 9 will be played in 1-game segments (a lot of travel, I guess). 3 will be played in two-game road trips and they will have four road trips longer than two games, the longest being a 6-game trip trek of the West in early February. The home split is pretty similar, with 8 single-game homestands, three 2-game homestands and four homestands longer than that. The 6-game homestand, the longest of the season, will be right after the Rockets finish their 6-game road trip.

Conclusion

Schedule-wise, the Rockets have a relatively easy one, which is a nice side-effect of being a mediocre team in a short season in a league that is operated by a greedy commissioner. The beginning of the season is tough but it does settle down pretty nicely. If the Rockets end up struggling, it will be because of poor coaching, poor execution or badly thought-out trades (or bad refereeing). The schedule has been kind to them. Let’s hope they can make it back to the playoffs, finally.

 

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delving into dangerous waters

By sohum | Published December 4, 2011

I have always been politically apathetic. This may be because I’ve lived in countries that are by-and-large democratic but are geographically and population-wise so large that the desire to enact any change is counteracted by static inertia. It didn’t help that I went to Rice, where most everyone is generally apathetic about, well, everything.

Growing up in India, “politics” was used as a verb that basically was the equivalent of “abusing power”. Sample:

“They were going to fix those roads but then the minister just did some politics and suspended the project.”

Politics and politicians have a very negative connotation in India. At least, this was the feeling I got, growing up. I remember hearing stories about voters being bullied or attacked at poll-booths to make sure they voted for a specific party. Or the countless articles about political parties dividing voters on the basis of religion. Or social class. I’m sure this stuff happens everywhere, but it felt more magnified in India because there are about a billion people living there and fragmenting the voting pool that much is going to result in hung elections all the time. I’m actually still not aware of the details of how the Indian democracy works. I should probably put that down on my TODO list.

It didn’t help the image of politicians that most of them appeared to be wrinkly, old men with little to no educational background. I remember reading a joke somewhere, recently, about the way India functioned. The best and brightest of our country’s population is striving for the jobs in engineering, medicine, management, etc. This is mainly due to the way our society has developed wherein these areas of study are supposed to be better and other areas (essentially liberal arts) are thought to be inferior, for some reason. That’s the topic for another discussion, though. Anyhow, the joke basically goes like this.

The (theoretically) smartest Indian kids go into fields that have historically helped a country in industrialization and general maturation. The others end up going to the management positions or the government and (mis-)managing those who are (theoretically) intellectually superior to them. I emphasize the word ‘theoretically’ because I don’t want to present that as my opinion. However, I do feel like the general perception in India is that the politicians are stupider than the general public.

Anyhow, enough about my paltry childhood from a political perspective. As I said in the first sentence of this post, I have always been politically apathetic, as a result of the dire situation in India. When I came to the US as a wide-eyed college student, the last thing on my mind was the political situation here because, frankly, I had better things to spend my brainjuice on, and I wasn’t allowed to vote so it wasn’t like I had any ability to create change, anyway.

I was a junior/senior in college at Rice when Obama’s campaign in 2008 rolled around and while I didn’t pay too much attention to his political viewpoints or ideologies, it was interesting to see young people interested in politics. Now, I don’t know if that was just because that’s how things were in the U.S. or if it just happened to coincide with my friend circles or if Barack Obama just happened to inspire hope and change, but it was refreshing nonetheless. When I was in college, generally Obama was considered to be a good thing. I didn’t bother to collect my own data but instead went with the flow. I didn’t campaign for Obama or against McCain, but Palin appeared to be a Bad Thing so I was generally happy when Mr. Obama took office.

Over the last four years I have graduated from college and am now fending for myself independently. While nothing Obama has done or hasn’t done has affected me personally, I feel like the situation for a lot of people has changed dramatically. Of course, Obama’s rivals have taken advantage of this to engage in some good ol’ propaganda-disbursement. And we have the GOP candidates lining up to earn their party’s bid for the 2012 election. And, of course, the candidates come with their own baggage, whether it is a slew of sexual harassment accusations or the inability to speak in public and sound intelligent (also known as the GWB-syndrome).

So, I have finally decided to do my own research. Since I am not affiliated with either party and I have a generally dislike for politicians (see: rest of article) I feel like I am at a good stage to decide for myself what I think about each politician and their viewpoints. Since it’s the Republicans that are occupying the news waves (Occupy movement-related pun intended), I will be starting out by looking at those guys and their thoughts and agendas. I’m hoping to be able to supplement my thoughts with media, as well.

I’m not going to make any commitments about what kind of content I intend to put up here. This may be the first and last post I have about this subject (mostly due to laziness). However, I do think I have finally reached a stage in my life where it is important for me to figure out what all the issues are, decide where I stand based on my viewpoint of the world, and figure out how that meshes with what our “leaders of tomorrow” have in mind.

I welcome you to post comments, thoughts, retorts throughout this process to encourage discussion as that will only increase the amount of information available. I would also like to apologize in advance if I ruffle anyone’s feathers.

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