From the last two days at Kolkata. This has actually turned out to be one of the better trips to the city. Got both the scheduled tasks done and, managed to sneak in some unscheduled work too (the home loan part pre-payment). And, all this in spite of the protests and rallies at the Metro Channel and what not.

Here are some notes in random order. Yet again.

• Used cash to pay for all transactions but one. And, ended up with a clearer picture of spending patterns when in the city. Of course, being a single traveler does help since the need to carry around large sums of cash diminishes. I should try this again as much as possible.
• I am still recovering from the shock of getting a phone line installed, phone instrument delivered and, a phone number generated all within a span of 7 days. And, the promise of a 2 day turn around in data link connection. And, a 1 day turn around for a 3G SIM.
• Taxis have this annoying habit of standing around 10 metres ahead or, behind a designated taxi stand. The designated taxi stand has a forlon looking taxi queue coordinator either chewing tobacco or, listlessly smoking a bidi.
• I've taken cab rides in cabs with the most funky upholstery. Including one that had a lady in a huge cocktail glass. Seriously. No pictures though. The cabbie was upset when I took one and had to mollify him by showing that I indeed deleted it.
• The approach to the EM Bypass / Kalikapur via the Jadavpur PS can also double up as an obstacle course for cars during rush hours. Car sized cracks in the road on both sides of the approach.
• The number of government and quasi government vehicles which ferry folks for a fare around the EM Bypass is staggering. I wonder why nothing is ever done about this thing.
• The sight of a bus load of shawl clad folks getting off opposite the DLF building and then scurrying across the road in the smog to go to their workplaces is a sight by itself.
• The globe on the Technopolis building needs some patch-up. It looks like it is going to fall off the perch in no time.
• 45+ lac for a 3BHK at New Town seems to be the flavor of the month billboard. A Hiland Project of some sort.
• Lots of buildings on the Rajarhat-NewTown connector use 'Nook' (as in Foo Nook) in the name of the complex or, building.
• NSCBI (aka Dum Dum) hopefully would be more spruced up once the construction is complete. For now it is the most ill managed, chaotic, un-organized airport.
• I don't know why folks become such boors at airports when they have an e-ticket. Got queue jumped by 3 Blackberry wielding folks (all in suits and totally unapologetic when their behavior was pointed out. One of them seemed to be some sort of a fat cat at a Tata Group company) and, a family of 10 (actually a single person jumped the queue and fished out a ticket and that caravan of trolleys) with possibly 50 pieces of luggage all of which they wanted to carry on board.
• Same queue jumping when the flight was called. And, guess what ? The same Tata chap did it again. Shameless !
• Indigo did not have the fruit cake. I am planning to lodge a complaint now.
• The flight was a bit choppy and I have a nice little headache which may flame up into something of a serious one. I hope it doesn't.

I had to visit Esplanade yesterday. This has been a week of rallies. One after another. And while the Police and general public have been berating the constant use of the "Metro channel" (the area in and around the Metro cinema etc) as the chosen spot for rallies, the organizers have been obtaining permission (from the police) and, arranging for the mass 'protest' and demonstrations.

When we were relatively young and, used to visit the Brigade Grounds and the Maidan for the casual playing of cricket and football, the elders accompanying us used to be averse towards visiting these spots till a week after the big rallies. The reason was practical - rally organization logistics demanded that participants needed to be brought to the city in buses and other vehicles. The basic amenities arranged for included open pit latrines across the various patches of green. The ugly remains of a "successful" rally was there for everyone to see and the very unfortunate to step upon/into. Years have passed by, the scene hasn't changed. And, yesterday, the pavements and lanes of all the connecting pathways between J L Nehru Road and, Red Road were filled up with folks in tents, camped there to await the rally for the next day. And, the unmistakable scene of open-air defecation. Along with the stench. Either the wind wasn't blowing across the river and across the Eden Gardens or, the stench was horrendous.

What will happen to a city that revels in the most stupid way in such display ? Near the CESC office there was an agitation of the contingent workers. Led and organized by CITU. The usual cursory "Zindabad, Zindabad" litany was on when I turned towards the Ayakar Bhaban. When I came out, the crowd was dispersing in various four and three wheelers. And, the ground was red with chewing tobacco spit. That segment of road, hardly 20 feet is actually very well maintained and cleaned. That piece was full of spit - red and god-awful to look at. The wall of the Metro station right near the Peerless Inn is another gallery of chewing tobacco art.

I'm not generally the one who'd berate his city of birth. But, there is a limit till which one can turn a blind eye and keep telling fondly "but oh ! that is so Kolkata". That doesn't work not any more. Simple civic sense seems to have floated out of the brains of the citizenry. I've had a well dressed, well spoken gentleman walk into a shop smoking a cigarette and then arguing that the shop was a public place because it was open to the public ! On a side note, the ladies I've noticed smoking tend to be more careful about not blowing smoke into your face and up your nostrils. Try the stretch between Asiatic Society and, The Park, especially right opposite the ICICI Chowringhee Branch. You'd be hard pressed to see anything other than swirling curls of cigarette smoke and be assaulted on your nose by the astringent smell. It is the same you'd see in auto rickshaws, buses and, taxis. 

It amuses me to sometimes hear side conversations about the impending political change. As if things will be wiped out and a happy life would begin. Two things jump out - that the population is frustrated with the incumbent government and desperately hope that a change would be good and, in their eagerness to self-delude themselves about a change being good, they forget that the political actors haven't changed, the equations haven't changed and, that they all originated from the same cesspool of Bengal politics.

I've been using a LG P500 for a while now. The phone is a couple of firsts for me - a first time shift from being a longtime user of Symbian phones, a first time user of a touch phone and, a first time user of an Android device (this comes with Android 2.2)

The phone specifications can be read at this page and it would be obvious at a first glance that it isn't beefy. I would agree. Games aren't the strong point of the phone. I'm not too particularly fond of games but I gave them a shot just to check how the hardware behaves. There are a few other bits too - the tiny power/screen lock button on the top, the lack of a flash, the latency of the camera between clicking to shoot and actually storing the picture and, the slightly cluttered up application screen. However, these are more than made up for by the balance of the phone. How an instrument feels on the hand is very important to me - this one is snug and evenly balanced and, even though I shifted from the all metal feel of an e71, this one doesn't feel tackily plasticky. I like the interface and, although it took me a while to figure out how to prevent applications running in the background from slurping up data on a GPRS data connection, I blame the sparse manual for that rather than the phone UI. Having heard horror stories about the Android battery life, I was prepared to be disappointed. However, so far, squeezing out 20+ hours on a single charge and full day usage hasn't been too tough. Either I am a lucky sort or, the battery is performing better in the initial stages. 

Which brings us to the thing that bothers the hell out of me. I've always maintained that the Ovi Store was a misery. Well, the Android marketplace seems to be a misery of a different sort - too many applications and not enough information about the ratings and what they mean. And, the AppAdvisor provided by LG is equally flawed when suggesting any applications. For the record, the current lot of extra applications I've downloaded and used frequently include the Status.Net application, Amazon Kindle Application (which is much nicer than what I expected and allows me to get ahead with me reading by handling reflows nicely), Evernote, Google Finance, Google Translate, Skype, Opera Mini, Foursquare, TED Mobile (clunky but functional), A Good Reader (I'm not too overjoyed with this but it serves the purpose) and, Mundu IM (a shout-out to the Mundu IM team here - they helped me re-use the same license I had for the Symbian phone). Oh yeah ! I used the Barcode Scanner application for a bit. It is a fun app - doesn't work for everything but works nicely when it does. Google Goggles was fun too (for a day or, so). Coming back, it needs some explanation as how the ratings work and, what it means for the functionality of the application. A quick example could be that SMS Backup works nicely but SMS Backup+ failed to get going. And, the latter is fairly highly rated on the marketplace.

The synchronization with the Google Account(s) is both a plus and a downside. While it allows authentication to be quickly used, the fact that the phone call-in system cannot re-use the Google Contacts to display incoming caller identification and details is a bit of a bore. This has meant that I've had to do away with my workflow of not picking up the call of anyone whose number isn't on my call log and, thereafter keep adding the details in. Either there is some setting I'm missing or, it is supposed to act in this quirky and annoying fashion. The manual doesn't help too.

In two of my recent device purchases I've been tickled funny with the main set of keys - the slider switch in the Kindle (which I still think is the single weakest point of the design) and, the Home/Back keys on the LG-P500. Set on a single sliver of metal, the key has this feeling of running the risk of coming unstuck.

All I need now is the availability of the RSA Soft Token for Android and together with Touchdown I might be able to get more use out of the phone. Bottom-line, it is a decent phone with no big surprises or, achievements. The UI looks more like the stock Android and, it might actually be a good value for money purchase. On a side note, I quite like the keyboard functionality especially when used with XT9 enabled. It learns pretty quickly and suggests fairly accurately. No Indic rendering on the stock browser. Which is a bit of a let-down.