Life of Pi by Yann Martel

I still remember that particular day, years and years ago (yes, it has been published that long ago ladies and gentlemen) as I sat forlorn in the almost sterile waiting lounge of an international airport, hearing the constant “ting tong.. ting tong.. ting tong” of the moving escalator warning its users of the potential clipped toenails and stuck fingers within the meshes moving metals.
What can a person do to keep himself sane in an era when the most interactive thing that a mobile phone can do is to play moving snakes on dot matrix screen the size of my thumb? READING of course :-)

So, I digged (btw, why is digged shown as error in the auto spell check?) deep into my backpack and rummaged around for something resembling alphabets, formed into legible sentences, linked into paragraphs and bounded into something called book.
Lo and behold, I found a book entitled “Life of Pi by Yann Martel” and I smiled with that triumphant crazy smile (I’ll tell the reason later.. if I can still remember what I wrote up here).

PS#1: Just to note that I haven’t watched the movie adaptation of this book as I have phobia whenever some smart Alec producer wakes up and say.. “we should make this book into a movie”.

So, without further ado, let me recap what I remember about this book.
It’s about a boy named Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel from Pondicherry who grew up amidst the zoo-owning family.
I can’t remember the exact sequence of the book but all I remember is that I laughed LIKE MAD (gathering stares from other air travelers and hot steward/stewardess) when he tried to teach his school mates to pronounce his name correctly.

One fine day, his family had some run-ins with the local law, sold off the animals and embark on a one way trip to Canada.
During this trip, disaster struck, the ship sank with everything and everyone (including Pi’s family) except a hyena, zebra, orangutan and a tiger; which hid itself under the tarpaulin; beats me why that tiger is smarter than the hyena or orangutan. :-P

Drifting in open sea, the hyena goes crazy (what else can a hyena on a boat do right?), kills the zebra, gets bored, then kills the orangutan but surprisingly didn’t kill Pi.

Then the tiger came out from the tarpaulin and roared/said, “HYENA!! Enough of this stupid carnage or I’ll kill you!!”; and then killed the hyena nonetheless but spare Pi… AGAIN… ok, I made this whole sequence up :-P

Then tiger and Pi drifted together where they stumbled upon floating carnivorous algae island and escaped and then drifted again until the boat washed up at the coast of Mexico where the tiger jumped out of the ship and away from Pi.

I wouldn’t want to bore the readers to death but I laughed like crazy when I read the interview part with the Japanese Ministry of Transport official…. this time on the flight :-P, so imagine the horror of the fellow air travelers thinking that they’re sitting with a confirmed nutcase.

NOTE: I love the part when Pi stole all the sandwiches and stuffed it into his pocket as he spoke to the interviewers.

Anyway, that’s the book review “lah”… hope it’s not as dry as dry martinis, on the rock, shaken, not stirred. :-)

PS#2: No such phobia as book into movie adaptation :-S

Deep in thoughts (Education and such)

Of late, there are some ripples (or sometimes more like waves) within the working community with regards to the gaps in talent pool versus the demand in our industries (every industries in this aspect).

Below are my cheap 2 cents on these issues, which are directly linked to the very foundation of our education system; which in my opinion, presented itself as a systemic and holistic error (I wouldn’t go as far as ‘mistake” per se) instead of localized or process error.

1) Revamp the whole education system. Bring back internationally certified education system such as O and A-level certification and make English language the core must pass language.

2) Make sure that all universities (public or private) are in touch with reality when designing their course structure. They must be constantly updated with latest technology or knowledge in line with market demands.

3) Talent pool must be retained from within and not imported/lured from outside. Case in point; why should we train someone for 11 years only to see them conveniently “lured” by foreign scholarships due to biasness in the system? Meritocracy at best perhaps?

4) Impartiality from industries itself. Make every employer sign up for "equal employment opportunity" company. Not only in writing but in practice as well.

5) HR monitoring watchdog to ensure compliance to HR tenets of impartiality and non-partisan way of working to ensure that all employees and to certain extent, the employers are protected under the law; federal or local.

I wish I can list out more but it would be like a dog barking at Himalaya mountain range.
Not because of the potential snow avalanche but hermits, sages, old wise men/women and even Yeti might sue the barking dog for disturbing their peace in this politically correct world. :-P
Peace and out!