India, take the lead

Whether it wants to be so or not, whether it is ready for this role or not, India is becoming a global power. In the years to come, India will have to decide what kind of global power it wants to be. With its economic might, its military power, and its "soft power" all increasing steadily, India will find it increasingly difficult to continue its traditional foreign policy of non-alignment and non-intervention.

Americans are in an awkward position to appeal to another rising power to promote democracy, as our own engagement for demo-cracy abroad over time has contained more than a little neocolonialism, unilateralism and hypocrisy. However, in the last three decades, this has been partially supplanted by increasingly effective efforts (especially when multilateral, practical and soft-spoken) to assist demo-cratic development around the world.

One must also acknowledge the serious problems with India's own democracy: tenacious poverty and inequality, troubling levels of political violence and criminality in some states, and a fragmented political party system that makes it difficult to take decisions. In the face of acute challenges, it is understandable for India to want to be able to focus on its own problems.

Yet the established democracies of the world share a strong common interest in trying to bring about a more democratic world, and India's help is sorely needed in this cause. The global balance of power, of economic energy, and of moral authority is tilting from North to South. And the global environment for democracy is less favourable than at any time since the fall of the Berlin Wall, as an oil-rich Russia turns its back on Europe and democracy, a booming authoritarian China casts a lengthening shadow over Asia and now Africa as well, and democracy gasps for life in such crucially important countries as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand, the Philippines, Nigeria and Venezuela. There are still a lot more democracies in the world than there were in 1989, but the momentum is reversing, and many democracies are in danger.

There are several reasons why India should care.

1) India's own democracy could be affected by what happens regionally and globally. Recall that emergency rule fell upon India at a low-point for democracy in Asia and the world. Democracies thrive in regions where they enjoy the reinforcing legitimacy and mutual security of other democracies.

2) By engaging other democracies around the world, India will also draw solidarity and some lessons that could be useful for its own democratic reform. All democracies in the world today are imperfect, and we all need to learn from one another.

3) A more democratic world will be a more secure world for us all. Democracies do not go to war against one another. And they do a much better job of advancing human well-being and protecting the environment. Moreover, terrorism emanates disproportionately from authoritarian soil.

We are threatened in common with a global crisis of climate change that dwarfs anything human civilisation has ever confronted. And the pathologies of badly governed states - terrorism, crime, corruption, environmental stress, infectious disease - spill across borders more quickly and vengefully than ever before.

India does not need a radical reorientation of its foreign policy in order to make a difference to democracy in the world. It has an exceptionally rich history of democratic practice and experience to share with other developing democracies. Some of the obvious realms of experience that India has to share include: the evolution and functioning of federalism, the management of ethnic and religious conflict, the constitutional court, state and local government, electoral administration, the independent mass media and civil society. A very useful first step would be to bring practitioners and scholars from emerging democracies to India for periods of time to study how democracy works and has developed here. New institutions could be established and existing Indian think tanks and organisations could be supported to host such visits.

Of course the United States does quite a bit of this. But how relevant is the highly expensive and decentralised American (or even European) model of democracy for Asia and Africa? We would all be better off sending more democrats to countries like India and South Africa. And conducting these exchanges would be an excellent and also ethical way for India to extend its soft power at a time when China is doing so for much more brazenly commercial and strategic ends.

If India were to establish an institution to coordinate and organise exchanges with democrats around the world, richer democracies in the world would want to join with it and help to fund it. And in the near term, we have a ready potential vehicle. The UN Democracy Fund has recently been established, with a substantial budget that includes sizable contributions from India and the United States. It is a natural candidate to provide early support for such a new initiative.

India should join the worldwide movement for democracy because doing so is in India's own national interest, not because the West asks it. But the democratic West has obligations to India that it must fulfil in the process. If we are asking India to play more of a leader-ship role on the world stage, than we must make room for that leadership. This should include India's permanent membership on the UN Security Council and its inclusion in global agenda-setting dialogues, such as the G8.

Crossroads or Cross Roads???

I sometimes wonder - How come some people have so much clarity in their life???

I mean, why can't some people be as confused as a normal person is or is having no confusion in your life normal?
Hell, don't tell me that the last one is right...coz that would makeme abnormal!!!
I was reading that book or rather say that I've read those bestsellers on self-improvement. Tried 'You Can Win' and 'Think and Grow Rich', each of them repeating that scrap about chose your aim wisely and then follow it to heaven or to hell and blah blah blah...
None tells you how to chose that aim...kya yaar!!! Is God gonna transcend in my head and give me some of his/her's those goofy slapsticks or what?? How do i get to know what exactly do I want from my life? Shit am I torn apart between those do's and don't's?
There are so much crossroads in my life, that I face a road at any angle I turn! I once convinced myself with this one-liner:
"When you are at crossroads, cross all the roads or cross all the roads"!!!
One is not obviously not possible 'coz after all I am an ordinary human (with extra-ordinary aspirations) with just one life to survive and obviously too less a time to spend.
The other, shall take me straight to Himalayas (I'm already in their lap) forget all the materialistic world and embrass the fuckin divine sprituality which is supposed to give a man the ultimate pleasures of life. But back in my mind I know that ultimate pleasure of life in the ultimate orgasm, so there's no point taking up spiritual 'pleasures' of life before I get a bite of materialistic ones.
So as you can see for yourself, I'm once again confused amongst my options and dare not single anyone out. The best way out of the quandries ats it seems to me is to give the main ones a try all...how lucky of them!!!
How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.

Or as I always believe during an untolerable lecture,
"If you're not confused, you're not paying attention."

Life is decieving

You take one quick look and you think you know me
but you dont
you take a quick look at my page
and you judge me
idiot
young
depress
and you get that right
Why?
because its my words thats written on there
but if you were to look at my pictures
you think
shy
innocent
and smart
Looks are deceiving
life is ending and your pain is just beginning
of the ending

Girl in the moon

How can I sleep tonight?
Tell me how Mars survived
Fallen with stars
She opened her arms
Venus was in my sky
How could it pass by?
You silently served my time,
Even three chains-
Rust and rains
You puled away the tide.

Girl in the moon
I'm half way there
i see you everywhere
Help me find a way of falling
Close to you!
How could I weep tonight?
Touch and tears collide
Gravity spins
Me into your wings
And covers me in
Your light...

You are the silent silver
linng my cloud
You are the secret flame
That never burns out
Pull away this veil
And rise into view
Girl in the moon!

She is what she is...

She'as got a blind smile and a soft touch
A cute little dimple when she laughs too much
They say you fal hard when you meet her
Such is her allure...
She'as got a quick wit and a fast tongue
But she doesn't seem to know that she's the one,
They say she cheats charms, when she whispers,
She's devilishly pure...
You would see if you know her
But its time I told her so.

When I see your blushes
From a compliment of mine it touches,
Something inside I'm getting rushes
The adrenaline rushes
And I'm fascinated
That you really don't know how to take it
When I look at you that way you feel...naked
And I'm so into you
I'm getting rushes!!!

She's about five six
Got a sexy stride
With long tanned legs that she couldn't hide
A fine air of innocence
Nonchalence in every move
She's a sweet sensation tease temptation
She looks good enough to eat!
She's a fallen angel with a devilish streak!
And so they say
Like with like so finely sweet, finally meet...
You would see if you know her!!!

A Tulip

a
tulip
caught
my gaze
untrapped
in its brilliance
inviting to glimpse
yet linger not beyond
this moment's delicate split
where a sacred spectrum sounds
in higher octave against the setting sun
resounding fresher cycles not as yet imagined
in a vibrant promise silhouetted against its beams
reflecting ages paling as they bow in graceful genuflection
to times more vibrant that never can occlude the shine
of a single purple flower so unswerving and stalwart
caught firm yet gentle in my own heartfelt gaze
unfettered in this precious instant's pull
of fervent purple promise held fast
and clear in my beaming iris
as this image of a tulip
so radiant against
the setting sun
is opening
a smile
into
me

sour lip prints...

she spoke of ice-cream;
ice cold handshakes
up the middle of her
wedding dress.
silents drips
of fabric karma
lip gloss lovers promenade.

paper-back sunday
summer nights ,
bedroom whisperer
past
the droop of
shadowed eyes,
and sour lip prints.

come home falcon,
between licorice
i am skilled in
love jawing
and tomato wine.

taste my ever-glow
and flood my sun.

And this is Y I don't...

People hear some of my songs and ask if I believe in a "God".
In some of my lyrics it's obvious that there's a certain chance I don't.

The truth is that I don't.
I believe in the possibility that there could be something out there,
but as far as this allmighty great God that protects you, loves you, listens to everything you have to say, answers prayers...
well, no, I definitely don't believe in that one.

Now trust me,
I'm quite scared announcing this, simply because I know for a fact that people are going to immediately judge me, say I'm some "damn devil worshiper", and possibly never even listen to my music again...
Well, to any of you who are on that boat, let me just say...
sorry, but I'm not some crazy "devil worshiper" (on that matter, I don't believe in some "horned satan" either)...
and I'm not some terrible person, and I'm definitely not and never will try to push my 'beliefs' onto anyone.

The absolute truth is that I believe in life and the beauty of each of us individuals.
I think we're amazing creatures with so much possibility.
I think the answer to life is not in the sky, but instead in ourselves.

Fcuking u safely

For the safety and sanity of my loved ones it is time..............

That thou shalt be turned into a stone,
And that all thy wits shall be turned front to back,
And that over thy face the loathsomeness shall creep,
And that as in a coffin thy limbs shall be bound,
And that light shall be withheld from thine eyes,
And that thy house and lands shall be impoverished and spoiled,
And that all the nourishment shall taste to thy tongue as wormwood,
And that thou shalt be held alien from thy fellow man,
And that these things shall be so until I release thee,
I spread this table and mark this stone
And spit upon it and conceal it,
And light these candles and apply these poisons,
And fix this curse upon thee
In the names of the Four Fires
Whose names are RIL, YUT, SAR, and LOD,
Who shall consume thee as they are consumed

It is done.

Fcuk u all

What was life @ 20?

think i've forgotten what it was like to be 20. u know what i mean? everything was still so fresh then, wasnt it? or am i misremembering? i don't think i knew what the hell was going on when i was 20. i was still a kid. still wet clay, in the process of being molded. going to classes at college, my mouth still dropping open when i heard new things. gobbling up information in my notes, day by day. writing and reading 18 out of every 24 hours. just chomping up whole mouthfuls of texts and lectures and watching people get drunk and stoked up. each sex chasing the other.

it was wild. it was new. surprises every week. just finding out what politics was. just a little quivering divining stick, u know? like the water finders use? that was me. taking a dive downward when it divines where the water really is. trying to find something to dive toward and hang on to. trying to find out what i could believe in.

so i found out what i was interested in. books. history. writing. art. football. LOL, yes, football. drugs, no, not really. booze, just a little bourbon, maybe. i've never been really, totally drunk in my life. and it was when i was 20 that i decided not to go for drunk, a little tipsy is fine. but not two sheets to the wind. scares me too much.

yeah, i was 20, once. it was good, it was fun, it was revelatory. i guess i remember more of it than i thought i did.


Heck...i r'ber it like it was yesterday, after all I've just turned 21!!!

Anybody who believes that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach flunked geography. The tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul.Sex on television can't hurt you unless you fall off.Flies spread disease - keep yours zipped.Remember, if you smoke after sex you're doing it too fast. Don't knock masturbation - it's sex with someone I love. For the first time in history, sex is more dangerous than the cigarette afterward. Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. "Yes" is the answer. Men get laid, but women get screwed. It is bad enough that people are dying of AIDS, but no one should die of ignorance. When a guy goes to a hooker, he's not paying her for sex, he's paying her to leave. Sex. In America an obsession. In other parts of the world a fact.When a man talks dirty to a woman, it's sexual harassment. When a woman talks dirty to a man, it's $3.95 a minute. Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love.To hear many religious people talk, one would think God created the torso, head, legs and arms, but the devil slapped on the genitals. The best sex education for kids is when Daddy pats Mommy on the fanny when he comes home from work. No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens. My reaction to porn films is as follows: After the first ten minutes, I want to go home and screw. After the first 20 minutes, I never want to screw again as long as I live. Familiarity breeds contempt - and children. What is commonly called love, namely the desire of satisfying a voracious appetite with a certain quantity of delicate white human flesh. Sex is God's joke on human beings. Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions.

Against diseases here the strongest fence
Is the defensive vertue, Abstinence.

Life without sex might be safer but it would be unbearably dull. It is the sex instinct which makes women seem beautiful, which they are once in a blue moon, and men seem wise and brave, which they never are at all. Throttle it, denaturalize it, take it away, and human existence would be reduced to the prosaic, laborious, boresome, imbecile level of life in an anthill. AIDS obliges people to think of sex as having, possibly, the direst consequences: suicide. Or murder.There is nothing wrong with going to bed with someone of your own sex. People should be very free with sex, they should draw the line at goats. There's nothing better than good sex. But bad sex? A peanut butter and jelly sandwich is better than bad sex. The natural man has only two primal passions, to get and beget. The good thing about masturbation is that you don't have to get dressed up for it. Sex relieves tension - love causes it. If you use the electric vibrator near water, you will come and go at the same time. Men wake up aroused in the morning. We can't help it. We just wake up and we want you. And the women are thinking, "How can he want me the way I look in the morning?" It's because we can't see you. We have no blood anywhere near our optic nerve. I think I could fall madly in bed with you.Whoever called it necking was a poor judge of anatomy. Sex is emotion in motion.

Love's mysteries in souls do grow,
But yet the body is his book.

Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn't!I thank God I was raised Catholic, so sex will always be dirty. For women the best aphrodisiacs are words. The G-spot is in the ears. He who looks for it below there is wasting his time. Sex without love is an empty experience, but as empty experiences go it's one of the best. Sex between a man and a woman can be absolutely wonderful - provided you get between the right man and the right woman.Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children; life is the other way around.

Was it love?

Still. am not sure
If, what you say,
Is ever so pure...
Is what I show be trust?
Back you blindly
With a collar, sliting my throat
Is this my love or is it just lust?
How ever did u make me feel-
It was love that u meant for me,
Was it, or was it not?
If it was,
It was devoid of love...

Egotist...

I stand out of queue,
All alone
Absolutely no clue.

Dare I turn around?
Is anyone there?
Can I fall back,
Or shall I kiss the ground?

Am I being heard,
Or have I lost my voice?

Is the weather like this,
Or am I getting numb?
Chilling whips of air, they tell me
You are dumb!!!

They were all mirages,
I mistook them for images
Painted they were, like
colors on the wall.
Err, I erred them for
Rainbow standing in all.

It has been raining for this while
All my dreams were dry.
All along I have been missing you.
Staring in the infinite darkness...
I fear,
Will you always make me cry?

Enter the entreprenure...

Sandeep Murthy has had an illustrious career -- he earned his management degree from the prestigious Wharton School, worked with industry leaders such as Credit Suisse as an investment banker and Sony Music, and is today the CEO of Cleartrip.com, an online travel portal. All this and he's only 30!

In an e-mail interview with rediff.com's Shifra Menezes, Sandeep shares his journey to the CEO's chair at Cleartrip.com and advice on what it takes to build a successful dot com company.

Tell us about yourself, your educational qualifications, your first job. I was born in the US and moved to India when I was 12 years old. I did my schooling at the American Embassy School in New Delhi, graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Economics degree from the Wharton School, both obtained in 1998.

In 2005, I obtained an MBA from the Wharton School. My first job out of university was in investment banking at Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB), where I was an analyst in the Technology Group banking on high-tech companies.

What kind of assignments did you handle in the early days of your career? What disappointments or struggles did you have to cope with when you first entered the industry? At CSFB, we covered the technology sector and my work focused on financing for technology companies. This included working with senior management to develop their stories for investors, structuring IPO road show presentations and performing the financial analysis of the businesses.

The job was very challenging and required many long hours as banking is a world where the client comes first and you must do everything possible to exceed the client's expectations. The role taught me a tremendous amount about professionalism, how to position businesses and on the personal front about the value of confidence in how you present yourself and your business.

Which was the first major assignment that paved your way to becoming CEO?
After leaving CSFB, I went to work in strategic development at one of our client's companies. Here I had the opportunity to interact regularly with the CEO of a public company, this provided tremendous insight into what it takes to build, grow and manage a public company. This experience in conjunction with my exposure to CEOs through my work at CSFB, really helped me develop the basic understanding of what leadership means on a day-to-day basis.

Give us a brief sketch of your career before you became CEO. Before moving to India with Sherpalo Ventures and KPCB to focus on investment opportunities in India I was part of the interactive development team at InterActive Corp (IAC), the owners of companies such as Expedia, Match.com, CitySearch, Gifts.com and other online businesses. The focus of this role was to evaluate markets and develop business plans for new ventures. In this capacity, I had a chance to be a part of the founding team of Gifts.com. Prior to that, I worked at Sony Music Entertainment, Inc and Intraware.

Two years ago I moved to India as a partner with Sherpalo Ventures and the India representative of Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. I focus on consumer technology oriented investments in India. As part of my role with Sherpalo/ KPCB, I also took on the position of CEO of Cleartrip, one of our portfolio companies.

What is it like working at Cleartrip.com on a day-to-day basis? You've been with Cleartrip.com for about 2 years now, what has the experience been like?
I come from dot com background and see the potential in leveraging technology to make day-to-day tasks simpler. At Cleartrip we focus on the massive task of making travel simple. My job at Cleartrip is to ensure that we align ourselves and our resources to execute this vision in a profitable and scalable manner.

What do you think it takes to build a successful website?
I think putting the customer first and stopping at nothing to make sure you meet the customer need is an important aspect of any business. In the web world, this starts with creating a website that offers a friendly user experience and carriers through to the fulfilment and ongoing support that you provide customers.

Marketing is important as it is how you make customers aware of your offering, however at Cleartrip, we pride ourselves on a very high repeat purchase rate which is a reflection of the overall service that we provide customers.

Our marketing plan includes a combination of print, TV, online, direct marketing, outdoor activity and public relations to ensure we interact with customers at various touch points and create top of mind recall for the brand.

Do you believe in the 'lucky break' factor, or do you believe that an innovative, new idea is all you need to guarantee career success? Luck plays a role in every success, but if you are not prepared you will not be able to see the opportunity, So yes, I do believe in the "lucky break" factor, but I do not wait for it. Instead, I prepare and keep working towards a goal and try to create opportunities that will be helped by a lucky break.

When presented with a new challenge, how do you set about the task? I first understand the depth of that challenge; I divide the task and execute it step by step wherein every step is a learning opportunity with an outflow of ideas.

What qualities set apart success stories like yours from the average? An open mind and humility enable people to be receptive to varying approaches to solving problems and building businesses. This combined with a willingness to work hard and confidence in all you do helps achieve success.

What kind of criticism have you faced in the course of your career, and how have you learned to deal with it? It is hard to isolate any one type of criticism. I try to surround myself with smart people who are willing and able to speak their mind. This brings with it the open invitation to criticism.

The best way I have found to deal with criticism is to present the data that supports the rationale for a decision. Being a young CEO, I don't have the luxury of pure instinct to drive decisions, therefore much of the decision making at Cleartrip is based on understanding customer needs and desires through either surveys or actual customer actions on our site.

This approach to decision making combined with an open culture has helped create an environment where everyone is open to speak, but has to have the data to support their opinions.

What do you think is the most common mistake newcomers make? What advice do you have to give them in this regard? People lose track of the customer need that they set out to address and instead get too caught up in the "coolness" of a technology. Stay focused on addressing the customer need and keep an open mind to how that can be accomplished.

Having come such a long way in your career in such a short span of time, what do you think remains to be achieved?
Quite honestly, I am not anywhere near having accomplished any of my dreams yet. I think being CEO of India's fastest growing travel company is a fantastic opportunity to accomplish something, but it is really just an opportunity to start accomplishing something.

I look forward to developing Cleartrip into a world-class company that truly defines the standard for how travel is booked and serviced.

Did you have a mentor, and if so, how did he/ she inspire you to steer your career in the right direction? I have had many mentors throughout my career, each of which has contributed specific perspectives that have helped me develop as a manager and a person.

My current mentor is Ram Shriram, the head of Sherpalo Ventures. Ram helps by setting a very high bar for excellence and by continuing to drive me to achieve more than I may have thought possible.

How has your career impacted your personal life? Do you feel like you've had to sacrifice a few personal pleasures in favour of your job? Work can impose upon your personal time and it helps to have a very understanding family. On my side it is an ongoing challenge to manage my time and prioritise.

I am a workaholic and do thrive under pressure, but am continually making an effort to keep the pressure in check by focusing on the solution to a problem rather getting stressed at the enormity of the challenges that we face on a day-to-day basis.

There are quite a few young people in the US and UK who have set up million-dollar websites. Do you think the Indian sphere offers as much opportunity?
India is among the hottest markets in the world. There are foreigners who are now looking to India as an attractive place to build out their careers and really focus on building services to address the domestic consumer.

There are many opportunities in India and as an early entrant in the online space, I look forward to making Cleartrip an example of the type of world-class company that can be built in India.

What tips do you have for today's youngsters looking to set up their own dot com company? Find a large underserved market and develop a differentiated solution that will add true value to a real (not perceived) customer pain.

Confused???

How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next, delicious ambiguity.

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.

Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.

'V' for Victory, 'V' for Vendetta...

I am having sore eyes, intoxicated mind, for the same reason that every Indian has this morning. We won the yesterday's game, beating Pakistan by 5 runs. Can u believe it? We beatthem by five runs...just 5 fuckin runs?

Oh my goodness, finally our generation has seen a world cup victory! How it ached when we lost in the finals in 2003 and how Cricket saw the fury of its followers when the team exited in the first round earlier this year!!! How could we forget that our TV sets almost found themselves crashing on floor?

India stunned Australia, champions in tests and one-dayers, by 15 runs after Pakistan's six-wicket win over New Zealand in the first semi, sending passionate sub-continent cricket fans into frenzied celebration anticipating yesternight's final. Both began as rank outsiders in the inaugural World Cup for the game's shortest and newest version, but have banished their Caribbean failure as a distant nightmare.

Goshh...Can't write nemore, tears are welling up in my eyes! Hell, we did win after all!!! Its time for celebrations only...but yes..last congratulating words for Pakis, they tried hard...I hopw they don't get a fatwa issued against them!

Paulo Coelho is a Pig!!!

I have just completed The Zahir and believe me, when I was going through the book, I developed this notion that Paulo is perhaps one of the best writers, this eon has ever produced. The Zahir, is about the story of love of a man and a woman, a husband and a wife!!

Their love takes its journey, through ups and downs, through crests and troughs and evolves into what we know as a feeling of pure bliss! From a thing uncommonly known as Zahir, their relation grows into one of understanding and trust, that was otherwise lacking in their married life.

Paulo, did undergo those occasional outbursts of reflxions from his daily life, that I guess any author is bound to be influenced by (and i do appreciate that he didn't stray much). I bet for any reader, u could identify urself with the protagonist at one point or the another given the fact that u have fallen in love. The situations are so well crafted and drafted that it's rather uncanny to pass it without a feeling of deja-vu.

But all the blunder happens in the end. I was hoping or rather deparate for a wonderful ending, but all the striving efforts to reach the end were reduced to bits, on the very last page. Esther (his wife) was staying in some lonely village in a central asian country, for the past 5 years. She had been in love with him all this time and backed out from his life just to reassess their relation. They both had had extra marital relations, previously and their relation stayed undeterred. Infact, when Esther, goes out of his life, he is cajoled into a relation by a actress named Marie, with whom not only he developed a physical bond but emotyional as well. Now when esther meets him in this village she declare that she's pregnant from a stranger that visted her, Paulo's protagonist's world shatters around him. I mean, in the end he had to accept his wife in the same way ( did he have a choice coming 5000 miles for her?) But why the dilemma? Why take extra marital affairs so casually, why bed people so casually and then refuse to except its results in such a harsh manner?

If his love had really evolved over 5 years into something so mature, then why the initial hesitation to accept the facts? I mean aren't we all supposed to accept our lovers the way they are? With their qualities and their flaws?

I guess, even though Paulo wrote so intrestingly and so well, in the end he's also a chauvinist, a pure male chauvinist, a pig, an asshole indeed. I say FUCK U Paulo!!!

Excel @ ur JOB...

What do you live for?

Work, Power, money?

Watts the use, Have you ever drilled your Mind?

Running around amidst Milling Crowd,

Aren’t you ever Bored of revolving round?



When you gear up for a promotion

You are screwed and get just a motion

From One office to another

Like a dummy toy fixture



Once a while you have moments of Inertia

But your boss wants you fly to Siberia

For a task which you think a trivia



It’s not Horse power but the Modulus of Elasticity

That determines your success and Efficiency.



If your Modulus of Rigidity is too high

Juniors with Young’s Modulus will fly high!



If you are in friction with your boss

Someone with Lube and Coolant will pass!

IF your short temper shows Flash Point

You may soon be in Fire Point!



You may be good in details to nuts and bolt

But if you can’t handle those who revolt

You will be rough-cut to size and

Soon you’ll lay on surface-finished!



You must constantly leverage on your smartness

By never allowing the boss to reach high Hardness!

You must be bearing in mind fully

That growth will be faster with a Pulley!

The dilemma of life

The dilemma of life. Those things that I want to do, that I
desire to do, that would give great pleasure, I shouldn't do
because they are bad for me and will make me unhappy in the end
(Examples: illicit sex, eating delicious delicacies that taste
good but make you gain weight, drinking alcohol, etc.); and
those things that I don't want to do, don't enjoy doing, I
should do because they are good for me and will make me happy
in the end (Examples: hard work, self-discipline, modesty,
taking the time to do a job right, constraining myself to
always telling the truth, always doing the right thing, etc.).

Warren Buffet says...

Widely considered the most successful investor of all time, Warren Buffett is a luminous example of the school of value investing. Starting with an initial fund of $105,000 in 1956, Buffet grew it to $45 billion over the next 50 years, making him the second richest man in the world. Though he is widely recognized as being an investor, the bulk of Buffet's wealth was built through intelligent use of leverage offered by his insurance companies. Since most individual investors do not have access to the type of capital that Buffet does, it is not easy to replicate his astounding wealth-building feat. However, by understanding and applying the basic guidelines of Buffett's investment approach to their own investing decisions, most long term investors can comfortably beat the returns of all but the best mutual fund managers.

Whenever we buy common stocks for Berkshire's insurance companies (leaving aside arbitrage purchases), we approach the transaction as if we were buying into a private business. We look at the economic prospects of the business, the people in charge of running it, and the price we must pay." -- Warren Buffett

"Did we foresee thirty years ago what would transpire in the television manufacturing or computer industries? Of course not. Why, then, should Charlie and I now think we can predict the future of other rapidly evolving business? We'll stick instead with the easy cases. Why search for a needle buried in a haystack when one is sitting in plain sight?" -- Warren Buffett

"As Peter Lynch says, stocks of companies selling commodity-like products should come with a warning label: 'Competition may prove hazardous to human wealth'." -- Warren Buffett

"We are willing to hold a stock indefinitely so long as we expect the business to increase in intrinsic value at a satisfactory rate . . . we do not sell our holdings just because they have appreciated or because we have held them for a long time." � Warren Buffett

Charlie and I let our marketable equities tell us by their operating results not by their daily, or even yearly, price quotations whether our investments are successful. The market may ignore business success for a while, but eventually will confirm it." � Warren Buffett

"If you expect to be a net saver during the next five years, should you hope for a higher or lower stock market during that period? Many investors get this one wrong. Even though they are going to be net buyers of stocks for many years to come, they feel elated when stock prices rise and depressed when they fall. Only those who will be sellers of equities in the near future should be happy at seeing stocks rise. Prospective purchasers should much prefer sinking prices." � Warren Buffett

"Indeed, we believe that according the name 'investors' to institutions that trade actively is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a romantic." � Warren Buffett

"If you are a know-something investor, able to understand business economics and to find five to ten sensibly priced companies that possess important long-term competitive advantage, conventional diversification makes no sense for you." -- Warren Buffett

Amalgamated with the ZAHIR...

To quote Coelho here, Zahir is something (or in my case...may be someone) that you once come in contact with, it occupies your mind like nothing else, till either u go absolutely crazy or achieve a state of pure bliss.

Now, though I know what I am really obsessed with or should be...there arise some 'by-product' dilemmas (I'm not sure if am the only one who has them) who have threatened to obsess me with things that I do mind keeping in my mind.

The aims that I am obsessed with or to be precise, the pinnacles that reflect my Zahir...I'ld rather not talk abt them. They are supposed to be just worked on and never talked about, for ne talk about them shall put my credibility or my faith towards them in suspicion. But may be I could vent my anger on myself and my screwed up intellect on the people I am getting obsessed or 'unobsessed' with these days...

One a very, very dear friend perhaps the closest ever who I am losing in absence of contact channel, the so called mutual understanding, and the so believed unsatiated passion to succeed materially. I don't know how I (or she) caused this blunder (or is this blunder only for me?)She used to understand me like no one ever did, we used to share things that we never dared talk abt with ne one else. How we used to spend time together and how these spaces have creeped up in our relation...

And the other, yet another of my friends but she continues to grow more. She's what I would love to call like minded and her company is the solace that perhaps I have been looking for all this time that vacuum has been created in my life. We two resonate and that's y perhaps reciprocate. There was a time when I thought of her just as a friend, yet I know that in back of my mind she's striding to be more. I'ld never confess it to her, just because I am afraid of infidelity and what goes in her mind is one thing that I'ld never want to know, for I am afraid...

What if I swtich my Zahir? Won't it contradict the original meaning of Zahir, won't it be trearchy from the very sense of Zahir? What if she becomes my new love, my new obsession, my new Zahir...

All that we have been saying till now, is only regarding the hindu sentiments about the bridge. What about the country's best intrests, how r they gonna be protected?

Its obvious, that on demolition of this Adam's Bridge/ Ram Sethu, the trade and industry will be extensivelt benefited and all Soth Indians shall get a huge advantage out of that. But in Lord Ram's name won't the angry North Indians do much more havoc to plunge it in loss?

India and Srilanka already have a lot of navigation channels and a shorter one won't cause much difference (read profit) to the trade. After all this controversy and hype, the place is bound to attract international attention. It would be a much better idea, to develop and harness the place's potential as a tourist spot!!

1. Ramayana accurately traces the path of Rama from Ayodhya to Sri Lanka. It mentions about the places where he stopped on the way and all of them exist even today. Its impossible for someone to make up these places at a time when maps didnt exist.

2. Imagine this, for hundreds for years Hindus have been hearing about Rama building a Setu on the sea when none apparently existed. Suddenly satellite imagery discovers it exists exactly at the same place and position it was believed to exist. Is it a mere co-incidence? What are the chances of this happening?

3. Ramayana mentions about the Vanaras who have a face of an ape and are bipedal (walk on two feet). For many years the remains of what scientists call "Pre-historic man" have been found. Doesnt anyone see the similarities between the pre-historic man and vanaras?

4. If the archealogists are looking for clothes, pots etc used by Rama or something written by him, that won't happen. Rama existed in the Treta yuga which was millions of years ago.

5. There is no proof for the existence of Mohammed and Jesus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_jesus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Muhammad

6. There is no proof for Abraham having existed let alone built the black stone called KAABA. There is no proof that there is angel jibreel who came and stealthily uttered koran in mohamad's ears. There is no weird animal called BURAQ with a face of a woman, body of a donkey, tail of a peacock and wings of a bird on which Mohamad supposedly flew to heaven.

It is much more probable that a army can build a bridge than to believe that a man called Jesus walked on water. There is no proof nor its believable that a man named Jesus resurrected. There is no proof that Mohd split the Moon. But no one is talking about these things or filing affidavits in court challenging them. Why just pick on Hindus? because they are tolerant? Imagine someone challenging any of these in Saudi Arabia or any muslim majority country. Even if any of these ridiculous things are challenged say in Europe or USA, the Muslims all over the world will go on rampage destroying millions of dollars of property like they did during the recent cartoons.

Sonia Gandhi again played a masterstroke by taking credit for withdrawing the offending Ram Sethu affidavit. But this has also raised the question whether she did it in deference to Hindu sentiments or was she afraid of its negative impact on her party's election prospects. Since the United Progressive Alliance's ascendancy to power, a number of decisions have been taken by the government which hurt Hindu sentiments but none cared.
If suddenly her conscience took cognisance of Hindu sensitivities, then logically she should have also withdrawn the destruction of the Ram Sethu. One can only hope that political leaders understand that this issue concerns national sentiments and should be dealt beyond party lines.
After all, the affidavit was filed quite confidently by the State apparatus because the entire atmosphere of governance has a distinct 'offend the Hindus, get the Muslim votes' hue. Bureaucrats, being the most durbari species, sensed it, otherwise none would have dared to file such nonsense on a stamp paper during A B Vajpayee's regime.
It is this all-pervading air of 'bruising Hindus to get a pat' that the name that appears first on our lips since birth and lasts till the funeral pyre is lit was challenged so coolly by a government which is not run by aliens.
It has tried to delete all that stood for our identity and cultural traits that define us, our nationhood and soul. It shows utter disregard for the majority sentiment and the threads that weave a fabric called India, while distributing gifts of reservations and loans and opportunities for anyone declaring himself to be a non-Hindu. One Diwali our Shankaracharya was arrested and then Muslims were given reservations in jobs and educational institutions. No one ever, not even once, showed any concern for the Kashmiri Hindu refugees; rather illegal alien Muslim infiltrators were facilitated by enacting the Illegal Miggrants Detention Act and when the Supreme Court struck it down, again brought it back through the back door.
This attitude sets the tone of the State machinery. So what happened in this case was nothing surprising. If the affidavit was honestly withdrawn to respect Hindu sentiments, then why was it not accompanied with an announcement to withdraw the destruction of the Ram Sethu also? If the offending affidavit is bad, then the destruction of the bridge connected with the same great icon of Hindus is worse.
Didn't the political masters who cleared the affidavit know that Ram doesn't need any birth certificate from occupants of the paan-stained dirty corridors of State? Faith of any hue and region has to be respected unquestioningly. It is faith that makes people live and die for a cause, and not political jugglery.
Ram defines our nation, our ancestry, our civilisation. Denying Ram is denying India. Gandhi stood firmly for Ram Rajya. He died with Ram's name on his lips. His samadhi in Delhi has only one inscription etched on it, He Ram. But Hindus are asked to provide proof of Rama's birthplace and the data of his bridge's construction plans.
Now they asked for proof of his existence. Next they may ask -- with this kind of Parliament it is quite possible -- to provide proof of who gave Bharat her name. Where are the records? And the ASI's poor director will file an affidavit: We do not have any 'scientifically' ascertainable records, only mythologies say this land's name is Bharat. Hence the name can be changed to any Nehru-Gandhi Clanistan, which will have proof authenticated by the New Delhi Municipal Corporation!
Mythology. The whole construct is a British anthropological revenge on us. We had a different tradition of recording events and writing history. The British and their cohorts taught that all that was mythology, a myth, and only the Western Christian world's methods are 'scientific'. Hence we adopted their standards, their calendar, their ways to greet the guests, their worldview became ours, and we discarded everything that we cherished, adopted their attire and weird uniforms (see our learned advocates sweating in black but still not complaining) to look modern and progressive.
Hence questioning Ram and Sita, humiliating ochre-robed sanyasins, converting ancient people and ridiculing their faith becomes part of cleansing the 'heathens and pagans' of their dark practices and emancipating them to the 'higher' levels of 'modernity'.
When Kalidas wrote Raghuvamsam, he described the entire dynasty beginning from Brahma. Lord Brahma created 10 prajapatis -- one of whom was Marichi. Kashyapa is the son of Marichi and Kala. Kashyapa is regarded as the father of humanity. Vivasvan or Surya is the son of Kashyapa and Aditi. Manu or Vaivaswatha Manu is the son of Vivasvan. He is regarded as the first ruler belonging to the Ikshvaku dynasty. Ikshvaku is the son of Manu and established his kingdom in Ayodhya. Kukshi is the son of Ikshavaku. Vikukshi is the son of Kukshi. Bana is the son of Vikukshi. Anaranya is the son of Bana. Prithu is the son of Anaranya. Trisanku is the son of Prithu. Dhundhumara is the son of Trisanku. Yuvanaswa is the son of Dhundhumara. Mandhata is the son of Yuvanaswa. Susandhi is the son of Mandhata. Daivasandhi and Presenjit are the sons of Susandhi. Bharatha is the son of Presenjit. Asita is the son of Bharatha. Sagara is the son of Asitha. Asamanja is the son of Sagara. Amsumantha (Ansuman) is the son of Asamanja. Dileepa is the son of Amsumantha. Bhagiratha is the son of Dileepa. Kakustha is the son of Bhagiratha. Raghu is the son of Kakushta.
The clan of Raghuvamsha started with Raghu. Pravardha is the son of Raghu. Sankhana is the son of Pravardha. Sudarsana is the son of Sankhana. Agnivarna is the son of Sudarsana. Seeghraga is the son of Agnivarna. Maru is the son of Seeghraga. Prasusruka is the son of Maru. Ambarisha is the son of Prasusruka. Nahusha is the son of Ambarisha. Yayathi is the son of Nahusha. Nabhaga is the son of Yayathi. Aja is the son of Nabhaga. Dasaratha is the son of Aja. Rama, Lakshmana, Bharatha and Shatrughana are the sons of Dasaratha. Lava and Kusha are the sons of Rama.
Oh my god, these Sanskrit names! Why couldn't they have Roman ones, to be pronounced better?
The entire East Asia reverberates with the tales of Rama and enactment of the Ramayana including the Muslim-majority Malaysia and Indonesia and countries ruled by the Communists. But a Hindu majority country's government, under a non-Hindu dispensation, destroys the great bridge associated with Rama's legacy and files an affidavit that smacks of an alien mindset.
This was a counter-affidavit filed by C Dorjee, director (monuments), Archaeological Survey of India, on behalf of the respondent Union of India through the ministry of culture in reply to Dr Subramanian Swamy's petition that seeks to put a halt on the Sethu destruction. The language of the affidavit and the way it addressed the Adam's Bridge issue smacked of an utter disregard for Hindus. They hate calling it Ram Sethu and feel quite comfortable with Adam's Bridge, a much later coinage. Same firang mindset!
The way the whole issue is being dealt with by the government of India right from the beginning stinks of dishonesty and an aversion to Hindu sensitivities.
There were five channels available for the Sethusamudram project. Why the government chose this particular one, which required the destruction of the Ram Sethu?
The Madras high court and later the Supreme Court had specifically addressed the question of putting a halt to the Ram Sethu's destruction till the hearings are on. The Madras high court order of June 19, 2007 said, 'We are not inclined to grant interim relief at this stage, as it would hamper further work in the project. However, we leave it to the Union of India to decide whether the actual cutting of Adam's Bridge/Rama Sethu could be postponed till the issues involved in these petitions are considered by this court.'
And the Supreme Court order of August 30, 2007 said, 'Till September 14, the alleged Rama Sethu/Adam's bridge shall not be damaged in any manner. Dredging activity may be carried out so long as it does not damage Rama Sethu.'
But the government defied it and everyday put up reports of the destruction progress on its Web site http://sethusamudram.gov.in/ProjectStatus.asp under the 'Progress of Dredging Work' head.
The ministers and officers supporting such actions represent the same spineless babudom of the colonial era who would stoop to immeasurable depths only to protect their interests.
Ram set the highest example of righteousness, as an obedient son, caring husband, great citizen king, and a warrior par excellence. He is the embodiment of Dharma, who inspires to eliminate the wicked and establish the rule of noble virtues. Those who worship him are there in every party and organisation, yet, to rise above selfishness and uphold Dharma is a rarity.
To make the State just and fair, representing Bharat, is the unfinished war of Ram.

How does one know that its true love???

This dilemma, though not immortal (I hope), continues to linger and taunt me for some time now.
I for one, have never believed in those first sight loves...but rather think of it as a gradual, evolutionary process. If one of ur acquaintances grows up on u and u both develop a special liking for each other, u eventually lan up in a relationship neway...
This is the same thing that Indian culture supports when it comes to arranging marriages. Ppl set a couple with each other and the grow fondness for each other. As such both the ways are quite acceptable to parents too!!
But the big Q arrives on ur clairvoyance when u r required to asess urself if u r truly in love!!!
How do u know that the person u r hanging out with, right now is ur true love and how do u land on the decision that ...."Yes! this is that one person, with whom I wanna spend the rest and the better half of my life."
I mean obviously, a person is not perfect and u have to accept ur partner with his/her flaws and mistakes, but then u always try to be in a relationship thinking and hoping that this is gonna be that one person, he/she is gonna change my life, he/she is going to be my partner all life...blah, blah, blah.
But when u get to know a person u (hope u don't), u always get disappointed, beacuse u get in proximity with the flaws as well. Sice both the thoughts conflict, in chosing a person with flaws and at the same time gettin hurt by some of them, how do u decide if u r in love with that person and u can spend rest of ur life with him/her?
Hasn't any one of us got ditched or ditched someone for the reasons as simple as above?

I mean ...is this dilemma only my property or people elsewhere are infected, too?

India V/S China V/S CHINDIA

It may not top the must-see list of many tourists. But to appreciate Shanghai's ambitious view of its future, there is no better place than the Urban Planning Exhibition Hall, a glass-and-metal structure across from People's Square.
The highlight is a scale model bigger than a basketball court of the entire metropolis -- every skyscraper, house, lane, factory, dock, and patch of green space -- in the year 2020.
There are white plastic showpiece towers designed by architects such as I M Pei and Sir Norman Foster. There are immense new industrial parks for autos and petrochemicals, along with new subway lines, airport runways, ribbons of expressway, and an elaborate riverfront development, site of the 2010 World Expo.
Nine futuristic planned communities for 800,000 residents each, with generous parks, retail districts, man-made lakes, and nearby college campuses, rise in the suburbs.

The message is clear. Shanghai already is looking well past its industrial age to its expected emergence as a global mecca of knowledge workers. "In an information economy, it is very important to have urban space with a better natural and social environment," explains Architectural Society of Shanghai President Zheng Shiling, a key city adviser.
It is easy to dismiss such dreams as bubble-economy hubris -- until you take into account the audacious goals Shanghai already has achieved. Since 1990, when the city still seemed caught in a socialist time warp, Shanghai has erected enough high-rises to fill Manhattan.
The once-rundown Pudong district boasts a space-age skyline, some of the world's biggest industrial zones, dozens of research centers, and a bullet train.
This is the story of China, where an extraordinary ability to mobilize workers and capital has tripled per capita income in a generation, and has eased 300 million out of poverty. Leaders now are frenetically laying the groundwork for decades of new growth.

Invaluable role
Now hop a plane to India. It is hard to tell this is the world's other emerging superpower. Jolting sights of extreme poverty abound even in the business capitals. A lack of subways and a dearth of expressways result in nightmarish traffic.

But visit the office towers and research and development centres sprouting everywhere, and you see the miracle. Here, Indians are playing invaluable roles in the global innovation chain.
Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, and other tech giants now rely on their Indian teams to devise software platforms and dazzling multimedia features for next-generation devices. Google principal scientist Krishna Bharat is setting up a Bangalore lab complete with colorful furniture, exercise balls, and a Yamaha organ -- like Google's Mountain View (Calif.) headquarters -- to work on core search-engine technology.
Indian engineering houses use 3-D computer simulations to tweak designs of everything from car engines and forklifts to aircraft wings for such clients as General Motors Corp. and Boeing Co.
Financial and market-research experts at outfits like B2K, OfficeTiger, and Iris crunch the latest disclosures of blue-chip companies for Wall Street. By 2010 such outsourcing work is expected to quadruple, to $56 billion a year.
Even more exhilarating is the pace of innovation, as tech hubs like Bangalore spawn companies producing their own chip designs, software, and pharmaceuticals.
"I find Bangalore to be one of the most exciting places in the world," says Dan Scheinman, Cisco Systems Inc.'s senior vice-president for corporate development. "It is Silicon Valley in 1999."
Beyond Bangalore, Indian companies are showing a flair for producing high-quality goods and services at ridiculously low prices, from $50 air flights and crystal-clear 2 cents-a-minute cell-phone service to $2,200 cars and cardiac operations by top surgeons at a fraction of US costs. Some analysts see the beginnings of hypercompetitive multinationals.
"Once they learn to sell at Indian prices with world quality, they can compete anywhere," predicts University of Michigan management guru C K Prahalad. Adds A T Kearney high-tech consultant John Ciacchella: "I don't think US companies realize India is building next-generation service companies."
Simultaneous takeoffs
China and India. Rarely has the economic ascent of two still relatively poor nations been watched with such a mixture of awe, opportunism, and trepidation.
The postwar era witnessed economic miracles in Japan and South Korea. But neither was populous enough to power worldwide growth or change the game in a complete spectrum of industries.
China and India, by contrast, possess the weight and dynamism to transform the 21st-century global economy. The closest parallel to their emergence is the saga of 19th-century America, a huge continental economy with a young, driven workforce that grabbed the lead in agriculture, apparel, and the high technologies of the era, such as steam engines, the telegraph, and electric lights.
But in a way, even America's rise falls short in comparison to what's happening now. Never has the world seen the simultaneous, sustained takeoffs of two nations that together account for one-third of the planet's population.
For the past two decades, China has been growing at an astounding 9.5% a year, and India by 6%. Given their young populations, high savings, and the sheer amount of catching up they still have to do, most economists figure China and India possess the fundamentals to keep growing in the 7%-to-8% range for decades.
Barring cataclysm, within three decades India should have vaulted over Germany as the world's third-biggest economy. By mid-century, China should have overtaken the US as No. 1. By then, China and India could account for half of global output.
Indeed, the troika of China, India, and the US -- the only industrialized nation with significant population growth -- by most projections will dwarf every other economy.
What makes the two giants especially powerful is that they complement each other's strengths. An accelerating trend is that technical and managerial skills in both China and India are becoming more important than cheap assembly labor.
China will stay dominant in mass manufacturing, and is one of the few nations building multibillion-dollar electronics and heavy industrial plants. India is a rising power in software, design, services, and precision industry.
This raises a provocative question: What if the two nations merge into one giant "Chindia?" Rival political and economic ambitions make that unlikely. But if their industries truly collaborate, "they would take over the world tech industry," predicts Forrester Research Inc. analyst Navi Radjou.
In a practical sense, the yin and yang of these immense workforces already are converging. True, annual trade between the two economies is just $14 billion. But thanks to the Internet and plunging telecom costs, multinationals are having their goods built in China with software and circuitry designed in India.
As interactive design technology makes it easier to perfect virtual 3-D prototypes of everything from telecom routers to turbine generators on PCs, the distance between India's low-cost laboratories and China's low-cost factories shrinks by the month.
Managers in the vanguard of globalization's new wave say the impact will be nothing less than explosive. "In a few years you'll see most companies unleashing this massive productivity surge," predicts Infosys Technologies CEO Nandan M Nilekani.
To globalization's skeptics, however, what's good for Corporate America translates into layoffs and lower pay for workers. Little wonder the West is suffering from future shock. Each new Chinese corporate takeover bid or revelation of a major Indian outsourcing deal elicits howls of protest by US politicians.
Washington think tanks are publishing thick white papers charting China's rapid progress in microelectronics, nanotech, and aerospace -- and painting dark scenarios about what it means for America's global leadership.
Such alarmism is understandable. But the US and other established powers will have to learn to make room for China and India. For in almost every dimension -- as consumer markets, investors, producers, and users of energy and commodities -- they will be 21st-century heavyweights. The growing economic might will carry into geopolitics as well. China and India are more assertively pressing their interests in the Middle East and Africa, and China's military will likely challenge US dominance in the Pacific.
One implication is that the balance of power in many technologies will likely move from West to East. An obvious reason is that China and India graduate a combined half a million engineers and scientists a year, vs. 60,000 in the US.
In life sciences, projects the McKinsey Global Institute, the total number of young researchers in both nations will rise by 35%, to 1.6 million by 2008. The US supply will drop by 11%, to 760,000. As most Western scientists will tell you, China and India already are making important contributions in medicine and materials that will help everyone.
Because these nations can throw more brains at technical problems at a fraction of the cost, their contributions to innovation will grow.
Consumers rising
American business isn't just shifting research work because Indian and Chinese brains are young, cheap, and plentiful. In many cases, these engineers combine skills -- mastery of the latest software tools, a knack for complex mathematical algorithms, and fluency in new multimedia technologies -- that often surpass those of their American counterparts.
As Cisco's Scheinman puts it: "We came to India for the costs, we stayed for the quality, and we're now investing for the innovation."
A rising consumer class also will drive innovation. This year, China's passenger car market is expected to reach 3 million, No. 3 in the world. China already has the world's biggest base of cell-phone subscribers -- 350 million -- and that is expected to near 600 million by 2009. In two years, China should overtake the US in homes connected to broadband. Less noticed is that India's consumer market is on the same explosive trajectory as China five years ago. Since 2000, the number of cellular subscribers has rocketed from 5.6 million to 55 million.
What's more, Chinese and Indian consumers and companies now demand the latest technologies and features. Studies show the attitudes and aspirations of today's young Chinese and Indians resemble those of Americans a few decades ago.
Surveys of thousands of young adults in both nations by marketing firm Grey Global Group found they are overwhelmingly optimistic about the future, believe success is in their hands, and view products as status symbols. In China, it's fashionable for the upwardly mobile to switch high-end cell phones every three months, says Josh Li, managing director of Grey's Beijing office, because an old model suggests "you are not getting ahead and updated."
That means these nations will be huge proving grounds for next-generation multimedia gizmos, networking equipment, and wireless Web services, and will play a greater role in setting global standards. In consumer electronics, "we will see China in a few years going from being a follower to a leader in defining consumer-electronics trends," predicts Philips Semiconductors Executive Vice-President Leon Husson.
For all the huge advantages they now enjoy, India and China cannot assume their role as new superpowers is assured. Today, China and India account for a mere 6% of global gross domestic product -- half that of Japan. They must keep growing rapidly just to provide jobs for tens of millions entering the workforce annually, and to keep many millions more from crashing back into poverty.
Both nations must confront ecological degradation that's as obvious as the smog shrouding Shanghai and Mumbai, and face real risks of social strife, war, and financial crisis.
Increasingly, such problems will be the world's problems. Also, with wages rising fast, especially in many skilled areas, the cheap labor edge won't last forever. Both nations will go through many boom and harrowing bust cycles. And neither country is yet producing companies like Samsung, Nokia, or Toyota that put it all together, developing, making, and marketing world-beating products.
Both countries, however, have survived earlier crises and possess immense untapped potential. In China, serious development only now is reaching the 800 million people in rural areas, where per capita annual income is just $354.
In areas outside major cities, wages are as little as 45 cents an hour. "This is why China can have another 20 years of high-speed growth," contends Beijing University economist Hai Wen.
Very impressive. But India's long-term potential may be even higher. Due to its one-child policy, China's working-age population will peak at 1 billion in 2015 and then shrink steadily. China then will have to provide for a graying population that has limited retirement benefits. India has nearly 500 million people under age 19 and higher fertility rates.
By mid-century, India is expected to have 1.6 billion people -- and 220 million more workers than China. That could be a source for instability, but a great advantage for growth if the government can provide education and opportunity for India's masses.
New Delhi just now is pushing to open its power, telecom, commercial real estate and retail sectors to foreigners. These industries could lure big capital inflows. "The pace of institutional changes and industries being liberalized is phenomenal," says Chief Economist William T. Wilson of consultancy Keystone Business Intelligence India. "I believe India has a better model than China, and over time will surpass it in growth."
For its part, China has yet to prove it can go beyond forced-march industrialization. China directs massive investment into public works and factories, a wildly successful formula for rapid growth and job creation. But considering its massive manufacturing output, China is surprisingly weak in innovation.
A full 57% of exports are from foreign-invested factories, and China underachieves in software, even with 35 software colleges and plans to graduate 200,000 software engineers a year. It's not for lack of genius. Microsoft Corp.'s 180-engineer R&D lab in Beijing, for example, is one of the world's most productive sources of innovation in computer graphics and language simulation.
While China's big state-run R&D institutes are close to the cutting edge at the theoretical level, they have yet to yield many commercial breakthroughs.
"China has a lot of capability," says Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Craig Mundie. "But when you look under the covers, there is not a lot of collaboration with industry." The lack of intellectual property protection, and Beijing's heavy role in building up its own tech companies, make many other multinationals leery of doing serious R&D in China.
China also is hugely wasteful. Its 9.5% growth rate in 2004 is less impressive when you consider that $850 billion -- half of GDP -- was plowed into already-glutted sectors like crude steel, vehicles, and office buildings.
Its factories burn fuel five times less efficiently than in the West, and more than 20% of bank loans are bad. Two-thirds of China's 1,300 listed companies don't earn back their true cost of capital, estimates Beijing National Accounting Institute President Chen Xiaoyue. "We build the roads and industrial parks, but we sacrifice a lot," Chen says.
India, by contrast, has had to develop with scarcity. It gets scant foreign investment, and has no room to waste fuel and materials like China. India also has Western legal institutions, a modern stock market, and private banks and corporations.
As a result, it is far more capital-efficient. A BusinessWeek analysis of Standard & Poor's Compustat data on 346 top listed companies in both nations shows Indian corporations have achieved higher returns on equity and invested capital in the past five years in industries from autos to food products. The average Indian company posted a 16.7% return on capital in 2004, vs. 12.8% in China.
Small-batch expertise
The burning question is whether India can replicate China's mass manufacturing achievement. India's infotech services industry, successful as it is, employs fewer than 1 million people. But 200 million Indians subsist on $1 a day or less. Export manufacturing is one of India's best hopes of generating millions of new jobs.
India has sophisticated manufacturing knowhow. Tata Steel is among the world's most-efficient producers. The country boasts several top precision auto parts companies, such as Bharat Forge Ltd. The world's biggest supplier of chassis parts to major auto makers, it employs 1,200 engineers at its heavily automated Pune plant.
India's forte is small-batch production of high-value goods requiring lots of engineering, such as power generators for Cummins Inc. and core components for General Electric Co. CAT scanners.
What holds India back are bureaucratic red tape, rigid labor laws, and its inability to build infrastructure fast enough. There are hopeful signs. Nokia Corp. is building a major campus to make cell phones in Chinnai, and South Korea's Pohang Iron & Steel Co. plans a $12 billion complex by 2016 in Orissa state.
But it will take India many years to build the highways, power plants, and airports needed to rival China in mass manufacturing. With Beijing now pushing software and pledging intellectual property rights protection, some Indians fret design work will shift to China to be closer to factories.
"The question is whether China can move from manufacturing to services faster than we can solve our infrastructure bottlenecks," says President Aravind Melligeri of Bangalore-based QuEST, whose 700 engineers design gas turbines, aircraft engines, and medical gear for GE and other clients.
However the race plays out, Corporate America has little choice but to be engaged -- heavily.
Motorola illustrates the value of leveraging both nations to lower costs and speed up development. Most of its hardware is assembled and partly designed in China. Its R&D center in Bangalore devises about 40% of the software in its new phones. The Bangalore team developed the multimedia software and user interfaces in the hot Razr cell phone.
Now, they are working on phones that display and send live video, stream movies from the Web, or route incoming calls to voicemail when you are shifting gears in a car. "This is a very, very critical, state-of-the-art resource for Motorola," says Motorola South Asia President Amit Sharma.
Companies like Motorola realize they must succeed in China and India at many levels simultaneously to stay competitive. That requires strategies for winning consumers, recruiting and managing R&D and professional talent, and skillfully sourcing from factories.
"Over the next few years, you will see a dramatic gap opening between companies," predicts Jim Hemerling, who runs Boston Consulting Group's Shanghai practice. "It will be between those who get it and are fully mobilized in China and India, and those that are still pondering."
In the coming decades, China and India will disrupt workforces, industries, companies, and markets in ways that we can barely begin to imagine. The upheaval will test America's commitment to the global trade system, and shake its confidence.
In the 19th century, Europe went through a similar trauma when it realized a new giant -- the US -- had arrived. "It is up to America to manage its own expectation of China and India as either a threat or opportunity," says corporate strategist Kenichi Ohmae.
"America should be as open-minded as Europe was 100 years ago." How these Asian giants integrate with the rest of the world will largely shape the 21st-century global economy.

7
7 is a prime number.

1, 3, 4, 7, 11, 18, 29...
A Lucas number.

= 2 - 1
A Mersenne prime.

There are seven days in a week.

Hept- or Sept- means seven. A heptagon is a figure with seven sides and a heptachord is a seven-stringed musical instrument. A septennium is a period of seven years and September used to be the seventh month in the year, but not any longer.

The Seven Deadly Sins are avarice, envy, gluttony, lust, pride, sloth and wrath (listed in alphabetical order, not order of wickedness).

Among many things that come in sevens are the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Seven Sisters, Shakespeare's Seven Ages of Man, the Seven Levels of Hell, and the Seven Dwarves.

Netball and water polo are both played with teams of seven players.

In Britain the 20p and 50p coins both have seven sides.

Under British law, when you reach the age of seven you can open and draw money from a National Savings Bank account or a Trustee Savings Bank account.

7-Up is a soft drink. It was invented in America in the 1920s by Mr C L Griggs of Missouri who originally called it Bib-label Lithiate Lemon-Lime Soda. With a name like that sales were poor even though the drink tasted good and so Mr Griggs set about changing the name. After six attempts he came up with 7-Up, or so the story goes. 7-Up is also the name of a card game.

John Sturges's 1960 western The Magnificent Seven is about a Mexican village that hires seven gunmen for protection from bandits. The story is based on an earlier Japanese film made in 1954 - Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai.

Roy Sullivan, a park ranger from Virginia, USA is the only person to have been struck by lightning seven times. Between 1942 and 1977 he was struck on top of his head (twice), his eyebrows, his shoulder, his chest, his ankle and his big toe. Although he received hospital treatment for his injuries, he was extraordinarily lucky to escape death from so many strikes.


8
= 2 x 2 x 2A cube.
= 2 x 4
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13... A Fibonacci number.
Eight pints make a gallon.
Eight is the third number that stays the same when written upside down.
There are eight legs on a spider, barring accidents. Scorpions also have eight legs.
An eight is a racing boat with eight oars. Its crew is also called an eight. There are eight people in a tug-of-war team.
Some large car engines have eight cylinders.
According to Indian mythology, the Earth is supported on the backs of eight white elephants.
Before the rise of Christianity, there were eight days in the Greek and Roman weeks.


Eight-fold symmetry is common in decoration.
Pieces of eight go with pirates and parrots. Originally they were piastre - Spanish silver coins of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries marked with an `8' because they were worth eight reals. The dollar sign $ is probably derived from the figure `8' as it appeared on `pieces of eight'.
In the game of pool the Eight Ball is a black ball with the number 8. The expression `behind the eight ball' means to be in a difficult or baffling situation.
A cube has eight corners or vertices.
Many words beginning oct- are related to the number eight. An octopus has eight arms and an octet is a group of eight musicians. (An octet of octopuses would therefore have 64 arms between them.)
An octagon is a figure with eight sides and an octahedron has eight faces.


9
= 3 x 3 A square.
= 1 + 3 + 5= 2 + 3 + 4
There are nine major planets in the solar system, Beethoven wrote nine symphonies, and a cat is said to have nine lives.
A polygon with nine angles and nine sides is called a nonagon.
In French the word neuf means both nine and new. In German, the words for nine and new are neun and neu, and in Spanish, nueve and nuevo. As you count and reach nine, you know you are about to make a new start.

In this Black Forest game, a spinning top throws coloured balls into nine holes arranged as a nonagon.
Rounders and baseball are all played with teams of nine players.
A game of squash is won by scoring nine points.
Golf courses often have nine holes.
The expression to the nines means to the highest degree.
The game of skittles or ninepin bowling is many hundreds of years old. The pins are set up in a diamond formation and players throw the ball (or `cheese') at them. In the nineteenth century some American states passed laws banning the game because bets were often placed on it. But these laws were evaded by the simple ruse of adding a tenth pin. As a result tenpin bowling is now the far more popular game.

10
= 2 x 5
= 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 A triangular number.
= 1 + 3 + 6A tetrahedral number - the sum of the first three triangular numbers.
If a number ends with a zero it is exactly divisible by ten.
We have ten digits on our hands, and ten is the base of our number system: the decimal system. The Roman symbol for ten is X, perhaps representing two crossed hands.
The ten pins in a bowling alley are arranged in a triangular pattern.
Virgins, according to the Bible, come in tens: five foolish and five wise.
A dime is a ten cent piece in the USA.
Deca- means ten. So a decade is ten years, a decagon has ten sides and a crab is a decapod because it has ten feet. The Decalogue is a name for the biblical Ten Commandments.
A tithe means a tenth. It was the levy imposed by the church of one tenth of the produce of land and stock.
Men's lacrosse is played with teams of ten players.
Metric measurements use units in multiples of ten. In this context deca- means ten times so ten metres equals one decametre. Deca- is sometimes abbreviated to da. Deci- means one tenth so ten decimetres make a metre and ten decilitres make a litre. Deci- is sometimes abbreviated to d.

11
11 is a prime number.
1, 3, 4, 7, 11, 18, 29... A Lucas number.
The Eleven Plus was an English school selection examination taken by 11 year olds which was abolished in most areas with the introduction of comprehensive schools. It is still fondly remembered by taxi drivers and education ministers.
Elevenses is a mid-morning refreshment such as tea and biscuits taken around 11am.
Soccer, cricket, American football and field hockey are all played with teams of 11 players on the field.
The sun spot cycle repeats about every 11 years. Sun spots are dark spots on the surface of the sun. They occur more often during the active phase of the sun spot cycle. The spots have intense magnetic fields which are associated with magnetic storms on earth. Radio reception on earth is also affected by the sun spot cycle.

12
= 2 x 2 x 3
= 2 x 6= 3 x 4
= 2 + 4 + 6= 3 + 4 + 5
A dozen.
There are 12 months in a year,
12 inches in a foot and 12 old pennies in a shilling.
12 o'clock is midday or midnight. There are 12 signs of the Zodiac,
12 apostles and 12 people in a jury.

A dodecahedron has a regular pentagon on each of its 12 faces. It is one of the five Platonic solids. It has 20 vertices (or corners) and 30 edges. If you join together the centres of the faces of a dodecahedron you get an icosahedron.
Both octahedrons and cubes have 12 edges. An icosahedron has 12 vertices or corners.
The wheels of most cars are held on by 16 wheel nuts, with four for each wheel. Two important exceptions to this rule are the Citroën 2CV and the Robin Reliant which each have just 12 wheel nuts. The Citroën 2CV has three wheel nuts on each of its four wheels, while the Robin Reliant has four wheel nuts on each of its three wheels.

13
13 is a prime number.
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13...A Fibonacci number.
A baker's, devil's or long dozen.
13 is the `unlucky number' and Friday the 13th is supposed to be particularly unlucky.
If April 13 is a Friday, how many days will it be to the next Friday the 13th? What is the shortest possible interval between two Friday the 13ths? What is the longest possible interval?
Triskaidekaphobia is the fear of the number 13, for example, of 13 people sitting at a table.
'Eleven plus two' is an anagram of 'twelve plus one'.
Thirteen is the number of hearts in a pack of cards.
Rugby League is played with teams of 13 players.
Under British law, when you reach the age of 13 you can get a part-time job, but you cannot work for more than two hours on a school day or a Sunday.

14
= 2 x 7
= 1 + 4 + 9 A pyramidal number - the sum of the first three square numbers.
= 2 + 3 + 4 + 5

A pyramid of 14 balls.
There are 14 pounds in a stone and 14 days in a fortnight.
February 14 is St Valentine's day.
The humble woodlouse has 14 legs arranged as seven pairs.
The flag of Myanmar (formerly Burma) has 14 stars representing its 14 states.
The French word for a fortnight is quinze jours or 15 days. If a fortnight begins and ends on a Tuesday, does it contain two Tuesdays or three Tuesdays? And so does it have 14 days or 15 days? Who is being more logical? The French or the English?

15
= 3 x 5
= 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 A triangular number.
Rugby Union is played with teams of 15 players.
15 is the constant of a 3 x 3 magic square.
Under British law, when you reach the age of 15 -
if you are a boy, under certain circumstances you can be sent to prison to await trial,
you can see a category 15 film,
you can open a Post Office Girobank account but you must have an adult guarantor.
`15' on a bottle of sun lotion is its sun protection factor. Sunscreen products have factors like 4, 8, 15 and 20. The higher the number, the more protection from the sun you get.
The number gives you a rough idea of how long you can lie in the sun without burning -`Safe time' with sunscreen = `Safe time' without sunscreen x Sun protection factor
For example, if you have fair skin, you may be able to lie without burning for 20 minutes in the hottest midday sun in the UK (try hard to remember this if you can). But if you wear a sun lotion marked `15' the safe time is roughly 15 times greater -15 x 20 minutes = 300 minutes- or five hours. Of course you have to be careful to make sure the sunscreen does not rub off during this time.
The factor number measures how well the sunscreen blocks out the ultraviolet B (UVB) rays of the sun. These rays tan the skin but they also cause burning and are a major cause of skin cancer.

16
= 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 A fourth power.
= 4 x 4A square.
= 2 x 8
= 1 + 3 + 5 + 7
There are 16 ounces in a pound.
Sixteenmo is the size of a book made by folding each sheet of paper into 16 leaves.
In biology, if a cell divides itself in half every 30 minutes, you will have 16 cells in 2 hours.
16 pieces are used by each player in a game of chess.
Caterpillars typically have 16 legs. But when they emerge from their chrysalis as a butterfly or moth, they have only six legs.
Under British law, when you reach the age of 16 -
you can leave school,
you can marry with parental consent (or without it in Scotland),
if you are convicted of an imprisonable offence, you can be given a community service order,
if you are a boy, you can join the armed forces with parental consent,
you can drive an invalid carriage or a moped,
you can buy cigarettes and tobacco,
you can have beer, cider or wine with a meal in a restaurant,
you may become a street trader.

17
17 is a prime number.
In 1963 the Italian film director Federico Fellini released an autobiographical film Eight and a Half. A few years later a film called Seventeen was released and one film critic, who could not resist making a comparison, headed his newspaper review 'Seventeen - twice as good as Eight and a Half".
Under British law, when you reach the age of 17 -
criminal charges against you will be dealt with in the adult courts,
you can hold a licence to drive most vehicles,
you can buy or hire any firearm or ammunition.

18
= 2 x 3 x 3
= 2 x 9= 3 x 6
= 3 + 4 + 5 + 6
1, 3, 4, 7, 11, 18, 29... A Lucas number.
Australian rules football is played with teams of 18 players.
There are 18 holes on many golf courses.
18deg. Celsius is usually considered a comfortable room temperature.
The two 18 letter words `conservationalists' and `conversationalists' are anagrams of each other. They are the longest pair of anagrams in the English language if scientific words are excluded.
Eighteenmo is the size of a piece of paper which has been made by cutting a larger sheet of paper into 18 equal pieces. It is also the name for a size of book that has been made in the same way.
In the UK, the names of race horses can be no longer than 18 characters, including spaces.

One, unit, unity, single, solo...
An ace is number one in playing cards. French playing cards are marked '1' instead of 'A'.
A cyclops is a creature with one eye and a dromedary is a camel with only one hump.
There is only one of lots of things. There is only one planet Earth, there is only one Atlantic Ocean and there is only one you. All of these are unique.
Words beginning with uni- often mean there is one of something. For example, unicycles have one wheel and unicorns have one horn. Unisex means the two sexes appearing as one because they are indistinguishable by hair or clothing.
The letters A, B, C, D, E, M, T, U, V, W and Y all have one line of symmetry.
The international dialling code for the USA and Canada is 01.


2
2 is a prime number and is the only even prime number.
= 1 x 2 Factorial 2 or 2!
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13... A Fibonacci number.
A deuce, a couple, a brace, a duo or a pair...
There are two blades on a pair of scissors and two sides to a piece of paper. People have two hands and so do some clocks. There are two sexes and two sides to an argument. Two-dimensional means that something has just length and width, but no depth.
Two's company, three's a crowd all depends on who you happen to be with.
Bi- means two. For example, a bicycle has two wheels and a bigamist has two husbands or two wives.


3
3 is a prime number.
= 1 + 2 A triangular number.
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13...A Fibonacci number.
1, 3, 4, 7, 11, 18, 29...A Lucas number.
A triad, triplet, trio, tern or hat-trick...
Tri- means three. So triangles have three sides, tripods have three legs and the dinosaur triceratops had three horns. The French flag is a tricolore because it has three colours. Trigonometry is a branch of mathematics based on measuring triangles.

A triangle of triangles in the MOT test sign.
Three-dimensional means that something has length, width and depth.
There are three school terms in a year.
Oaths are traditionally repeated three times.
A three-legged race is run by two people each with a leg tied to their partner's.
The letters A F H K N Y Z are all made up of three lines.
There are three barleycorns in an inch, three feet in a yard, and three miles in a league. Barleycorns and leagues are some old imperial units of length which are no longer used today.
Once upon a time there were three little pigs ... three billy goats gruff ... Stories often begin this way and have a similar structure. Number one and number two are always similar so the listener is lulled into believing number three will be the same. But with number three there is a twist in the tale.
In Greek mythology you will find Cerberus, a three-headed dog, and Scylla, a sea monster with six heads. It is curious that mythological heads are inclined to come in multiples of three.
With just a ruler and a pair of compasses, it is possible to divide any angle exactly in half. This is called bisecting an angle. But is it possible to trisect any angle - to divide it in three - using just a ruler and compasses? Hundreds of people have spent hundreds of hours trying to discover a way to do this, without realising that it has been proved to be impossible.



4
= 2 x 2 A square.
1, 3, 4, 7, 11, 18, 29... A Lucas number.
A quartet, a foursome...
The word four has four letters. In the English language there is no other number whose number of letters is equal to its value.
The number four on a calculator is made up of four light bars.
Many things are arranged in fours. There are four suits in a deck of cards, four points of the compass, and four phases of the moon. There are four wings on a bee and four leaves on a clover, if you are lucky.
The four seasons are spring, summer, autumn and winter. This theme has provided inspiration for many artists, for the composer Vivaldi, and for countless take-away pizza establishments.
A tetrahedron is a kind of pyramid with four triangular faces. It also has four corners.

On maps adjacent countries are usually shown in different colours. What is the smallest number of colours needed? In 1852 Francis Guthrie guessed that the answer is four colours for any map, no matter what shape the countries take.
No one has ever found a map that needs more than four colours. But it has been difficult to find a satisfactory proof that only four colours are needed. In 1976 Wolfgang Haken and Kenneth Appel claimed to have proved the four-colour conjecture, but their proof is so complicated, involving hundreds of hours of calculation by a computer, it has been very difficult for other mathematicians to check.
Draw an imaginary map where the countries have very complicated shapes. Then try to colour them in with no more than four colours, and with no adjoining countries sharing the same colour. You may have to try colouring in several ways before you find a solution that requires only four colours.

A tetrahedron and a milk carton roughly in the shape of a tetrahedron.
Tetra- means four. A tetradite is someone who attaches mystical properties to the number four. A tetragram is a word with four letters (like four itself).
Quad- also means four. A quadruped is a four-footed animal like an aardvark, or almost any animal for that matter.
Plus fours are loose baggy trousers which require an extra four inches of cloth in tailoring. This ridiculous male fashion was popular with golfers in the 1920s.
In a molecule of DNA, just four bases are used to make up the genetic code that determines the distinctive form of every plant and animal. The four bases are called thymine, adenosine, guanine and cytosine, or just T, A, G and C.
Four-dimensional means that something has an extra dimension as well as length, width and depth. For the scientist, this is usually the dimension of time, where space and time are thought of as part of the same continuum.
However, in mathematics, four-dimensional means an imaginary fourth dimension in space. With two dimensions you can draw a square and with three dimensions you can make a cube. But with four dimensions it is possible to represent something called a hypercube. Some mathematicians claim to be able to visualise four-dimensional space and can conjure up a clear picture in their heads of a hypercube, which they can rotate or cut in half.



5
5 is a prime number.
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13... A Fibonacci number.
We have five digits on each hand and foot. V, the Roman symbol for five, may originate from the image of a hand with the fingers spread.
Penta- means five. A pentathlon is an athletics contest with five events and a pentagon is a figure with five sides and five angles. A pentasyllabic word has five syllables, like the word pentasyllabic itself.
Pentagram, pentangle and pentacle are all names for a five-pointed star. This mystical symbol was supposed to keep away devils and witches. A pentacle headdress folded from fine linen was sometimes worn as a defence against demons.

A pentagon (left) and a pentagram (right).

A pentagonal bolt is fitted to many fire hydrants in the USA because it is impossible to undo with a normal spanner - most bolts are hexagonal.
A devout follower of Islam worships five times a day facing the holy city of Mecca. The Islamic creed is the `Five Pillars of the Faith'.
The Five Ks are traditionally worn by The Singhs, who are a brotherhood within the Sikh religion. These are kes, long hair; kangha, a comb; kirpan, a sword; kachh, short trousers; and kara, a steel bracelet.
There are five rings in the Olympic symbol. Basketball is played with teams of five players, and so is five-a-side football.

Five Olympic rings
Many things come in fives: the five senses, the five Chinese elements, and five vowels in the English alphabet.
In Britain, a fiver is a five pound note. In the USA, a nickel is a five cent coin.
`Take five!' means take five minute's rest.
The Five Towns, made famous in the stories of Arnold Bennett (1867-1931), are the towns of Stoke, Tunstall, Burslem, Hanley and Longton in the Staffordshire Potteries. Bennett generated some ill feeling in the townspeople of Fenton, who were left out and claimed as much right to inclusion as the other five.


6
= 2 x 3
= 1 + 2 + 3 A triangular number.
= 1 x 2 x 3 Factorial 3 or 3!
The factors of 6 (1, 2 and 3) add up to six. This makes 6 the first perfect number.
1, 2 and 3 make 6 whether you add them together or multiply them.
Sex- and hex- mean six. So there are six sides on a hexagon and six musicians in a sextet. Sextuplets are six children born together and a hexapod is something with six feet, like an insect.

A hexagonal cake box.
A cube has six faces and another name for a cube is a hexahedron. Six is the highest number on a normal die. An octahedron has six corners or vertices and a tetrahedron has six edges.
Six-legged arthropods include insects like flies, moths, ants, beetles and wasps