remainconnected

2010-03-06T16:03:00.004+05:30

Phir 'Mile Sur Mera Tumhara'...

I am sure everyone, whosoever is in his/her late 20s or older today, must have seen 'Mile Sur Mera Tumhara' Video on Doordarshan channel when 'Rookavat liye khed hai' line for non-transmission was a regular affair. The 'Mile Sur Mera Tumhara' song was released on 15th August 1988 on Doordarshan channel and it had 26 famous Indian personalities. The song's duration was around five and a half minutes and it was indeed doused with the spirit of unity in diversity with stalwarts such as Lata Mangeshkar, Pt. Bhimsen Joshi and many musicians lending their voice to this composition. The song reverberated the message of integrity in spite of the heterogeneity in this vast land, where the word 'Ali' in 'Diwali' and 'Ram' in 'Ramzan' are embraced seamlessly. The song depicted India as an icon of religious and regional pluralism and the phrases were tailored so graciously that they were prettier than the embroidered border of a designer kurta.

The original 'Mile Sur Mera Tumhara' was the brainchild of late Suresh Mullick of O & M Advertising.

But recently the new 'Phir Mile Sur Mera Tumhara' Video was released and the modern version was made over after 22 years. The modern version, I am told features 68 famous Indian personalities. Hmmmm, let me equate the famous Indian personalities to Bollywood+Tollywood+Kollywood personalities, in fact all woods minus Hollywood. The song is shot at 15 different locations and features movie and music industry related personalities such as A R Rahman, Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Priyanka Chopra, Shreya Ghoshal, Shankar Mahadevan and many more. The new song is bit darn lengthy and runs for about sixteen and a half minutes. I feel the soul of the original song was plundered in the new version and the modern edition lacks capacious togetherness which was the marrow of the original song. I may be a bit harsh, but the new 'Phir Mile Sur' doesn't depict unity in diversity, rather its a celebrity parade, a soup of glamorous faces humming the song of unity.

Aarti and Kailash Surendranath, the creators of the modern version of 'Phir Mile Sur Mera Tumhara' should realize that few things are better when left un-touched because those are master pieces and iconic creations of art. Any form of imitation or re-creation, even if the best in state of the art technology and sound effects are used, cannot create the magic of the original piece. The end result is as disappointing as in this attempt of the Surendranath duo. One 'Sur' never got juxtaposed to another 'Sur' which is the prime essence of the original song, rather it appeared to be an emphatic attempt by the artists to lip sync and somehow make it appear as though it were seamless. It is very unfortunate that even patriotism is used for marketing.

To me, the original work and memories of 'Mile Sur Mera Tumhara' are something best left in dusty frames of Doordarshan channel and not signed by erstwhile wave of commercialization. I still like my paati wali chai, than the tea-bag chai or chai made in any other sophisticated way.

More about chai, here. More about late Suresh Mullick here.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2010-02-13T00:47:00.009+05:30

Patience Vs Impatience...

Don't you think that fans and foes of Barack Obama agree upon one point and that is he's an impressive and inspiring orator. Though he is an intriguing speaker, he has a strong addiction for
teleprompter.

Words straight from the horse's mouth

Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. It's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.

If you would have heard Obama speak, 'Patience' is one word that he uses often.

But is 'Patience' a virtue or a vice. For Indian Telecom major, Airtel the opponent of 'Patience' that is 'Impatience' is the new spice of life.

Keep reading and remain connected.

Pic Source: Remain Connected

2010-02-07T16:34:00.004+05:30

How Starbucks Saved My Life...

I read a number of books in the last couple of weeks. One among those was 'How Starbucks Saved My Life' by Michael Gates Gill and it did strike a different perspective on life, though very mildly. A life that has suddenly switched from one of prestige, power, money, glam and glitz to that of an ordinary common man, a barista at Starbucks.

It is the sweet bitter story in the first few chapters which transforms into a bitter sweet tale in the later half of the book. It's the story of Michael Gates Gill who was born in a highly reputed family and was son to Brendan Gill, well-known writer for the New Yorker. Gill's early life was all that one could aspire for, education at Yale University, job at the prestigious J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, acquaintance with Ernest Hemmingway and other crème de la crème in the field of literature, etc. You name it; he had it, all the symbols of modern day success and badges of material accomplishments by the time he was fifty.

One fine day J. Walter Thompson un-ceremonially dismisses him, thanking Gill for his service for more than two and a half decades. A high profile executive is now unemployed and that too at a time when he discovers that he is a new father with a woman he had an affair with and needs to take care of a little girl. The affair brings an end to his twenty-year marriage and he is isolated from his former wife and his children. Life comes to a sudden halt as Gill is also diagnosed with a small tumor in his head. Depression and cover of darkness dominates Gill's life.

With no money, no health insurance, and no prospects, one day Gill spends his time in a Manhattan Starbucks with his last affordable luxury "a latte" brooding about his misfortune and how to take care of his little baby girl. Something magical happens and a young African-American woman asks the suit clad Gill if he is looking a job. Gill accepts the offer without a second thought and later learns that the godsend, 28 year old young woman, Crystal, is a Starbucks manager.

Once on job floor, Gill undergoes a major shift in life from commanding an army of advertising specialists to scrubbing toilets, making coffee, handling the cash counter and doing other day-to-day activities at Starbucks working with a team of young African-Americans. Gill, the only old white guy in the team begins to see life from a different perspective, appreciates the harsh realities of survival, and also rectifies his ingrained prejudices related to many aspects. Respect and kindness become his crutches, when his entire armor of entitlement had been stripped away. Gill learns from his co-workers who are half his age in their mid twenties, that 'gratitude' and 'will to fight' doesn't follow any equation having color, class, race, religion, age, skin pigmentation, language, or gender as variables.

Crossing over the Starbucks bar was the beginning of a dramatic transformation that cracked Gill's world wide open. That's the pulp of the storyline and so the name 'How Starbucks Saved My Life'.

The book was a Ok Ok read though and I finished it in two sittings. At times I found that stories and the tales that Gill, the former corporate shark spews at regular intervals in the book were a bit kitschy. The author has spent page after page explaining how the utopian corporate culture of Starbucks transformed his life, the repeated theme of working with African-Americans, etc. While reading the book, I found these opinions were over done, often giving the impression that it was a Starbucks promotional pap impersonating as a memoir.

I am a bit thrifty and give it a 6/10 on my reading scale. Try it if you wish to.

The New York Times published an interesting interview-article with the author in which one can learn some surprising things that weren’t mentioned in the book.

More about Starbucks here.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2009-03-17T23:13:00.003+05:30

Group 'Wah'...

Group 'Wah'. What's that? When was the last time that you traveled in a bus and the driver applied a sudden screeching break and all the passengers dashed forward from their regular positions. All at once, at one time, simultaneously.

Group 'Wah' is all about unison, applying the principles of wave propagation that we learnt when in school, it's a mantra to send multitudes into a kind of frenzy, something like a mass psychosis, it's the automatic clock that makes millions of others who are in different time zones and not within their native land, to sleep and wake up, perfectly in sync with the match timings.

Do you feel that it happens only in India or with desis. No, it's a global phenomenon. Now, to explain the behavior that you see in the video, you need to understand the phenomenon known as Brainwave Entertainment.

Don't miss the complete article here. Also, at the end of the video it was mentioned that the
IPL kicks off on 10th Apr'09. But so far nothing is clear and the final dates are not yet sorted out. Most likely this event would get delayed keeping in view the nation wide election which is slotted to be conducted in phases.

If in Honk Kong the sounds of horse racing announcers can stimulate the brains of people from a delta state to a beta state, it's a game of cricket, that does wonders in our desi land. Sahi boola na..

[Hat tip: Larry Feign for the Theory of Group 'Wah'.]

Keep reading and remain connected.

2009-03-14T19:12:00.002+05:30

The Magic of 'Pata Chitra'...

Come to think of it, the winter season is famous for something, which is the biggest form of celebration in an Indian family, the marriage function. I do not understand the nitty gritty about why only this part of the year, but know for a fact that from May to July and again from November to February of the calendar, is the season for marriage functions in India. All I know is that these months are considered auspicious for the event.

A couple of months back my elder brother got married and like a similar function in any part of India, it was marked by a riot of colors, get-together of relatives and friends from within the country and abroad, gossip among the guests, sumptuous food, glittery jewelery, shimmering attires, and lots of naach, gaana dancing to the tunes of the latest Bollywood hits.

But to add a paaka desi-flavor to all these, to showcase something that is authentic and to patronize a dying art form, my maa had her own charter. She had planned for miniature paintings to be done on few walls of the house. She had contacted the artists and made the entire blueprint for her project from planning to its execution.

The art form that was followed is from the school of 'Pata Chitra'. 'Pata' in Sanskrit means piece of cloth and 'Chitra' means painting or picture. This art form is defined by its use of rich colors made out of vegetables and mineral extracts, its portrayal of pure and simple themes, depicting a combination of folk and classical elements and is not limited to religious themes.

In the picture below, the theme is that of a marriage and it is painted in the style of an oleograph on the wall. But as you can see, there is deviation from the basics here, synthetic paints are used, unlike the colors made out of vegetables and mineral extracts.

The digression from the fundamentals was done because the base for the painting was not a piece of cloth but a concrete wall.

The colors are bright and possess a peculiar charm, very distinct and a remarkably original art form. As I was writing this post, it also reminded me of an excellent project work that one of my friends had done, while he was a Product Design student at National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. He had spent close to one and a half months in a village, Raghurajpur where artisans create sheer poetry on pieces of treated cloth or dried palm leaves or paper and learnt the fine nuances of this art form. More about Raghurajpur here.

The 'kolam' on the floor of the marriage 'mandap'(platform) was also done by the same artists who did the work on walls.

Do not miss a very interesting article by Raji on 'The Kolam Festival' at the Mylapore festival.

But what is hurting is that these timeless art forms are loosing their value with the advent of modernity. To cite an example, take the case of 'Pata Chitra', the entire process starting from the design to the final output is managed manually by artisans. It's the creation of their deft fingers and immeasurable imagination, an art form whose intricacies are passed from one generation to another. But duplicates of such paintings are made these days using modern printing capabilities. So the artists feel their authentic creations do not have as big an audience as for faux products. Many artisans leave the villages to find menial jobs in cities and towns to make a living. Sad but true.

Now, I know why my maa wanted those paintings, it was to showcase the creativity of the bunch of smart artisans, who need support. Don't you endorse, her thinking?

Check the pics here, looks better against a black background.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2009-03-11T08:33:00.006+05:30

Happy Holi Wishes...

Wishing you all a Happy Holi. Enjoy this season with colors of life, colors of joy, colors of happiness, colors of friendship, colors of love and all other colors you want to paint in your life. Of course with lots of mithai, thandai and thoda sa bhang. The air reverberates with Rang Barsee.

Keep reading and remain connected.

Note: The pic that you see above is by Xavier Zimbardo, a French photographer and journalist whose marvelous works have been featured in several European and international photography publications. A recipient of several grants and prizes, from different countries, including those from the Kodak Foundation and the French government. He is also author of several books, one among which is 'Holi'. Anyone who has been to Paris's Bibliothèque Nationale and Maison Européenne de la Photographie, would have never missed his work.

The entire collection of his pics on the colorful festival of Holi is here. Simply put its poetry through a camera lens.

2009-03-09T17:51:00.001+05:30

Summer is on...

sitting with my knees close to my chest,
with a different silence,
my lungs and my nose inhale the dry morning air,
there is a sudden change around.
winter is all gone,
leaves crackling in front of my door step.

roosting like an eagle at my place,
i see the streets which appear hebetudinous.
kids hurrying to school,
running over a bed of jacaranda.
withered grass meets drooped leaves,
they say summer is on.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2009-02-24T06:53:00.005+05:30

Mark Tully's, The Heart of India...

A couple of days back, the news of Chander Mohan, son of Haryana's seasoned politician Bhajan Lal getting himself converted to Islam, with a new name Chand Mohammed was the talk of the town. The conversion was apparently not because of Chander Mohan's strong faith but for getting married for the second time to his lady love, lawyer and former Assistant Advocate General, Anuradha Bali, who also got converted to Islam, to be reborn as Fiza.

Don't you feel that this incident had all the ingredients of a Bollywood potboiler and even beyond?

Also a couple of weeks back, while reading the newspaper, I learnt about a spine-chilling incident, in which a mother, wanting to fulfill her religious vow, dipped her three-month-old baby three times into a boiling rice pot in Jumalapur village in Bijapur district. It does sound scary, something like the ripley-believe-it-or-not kind of act.

But why am I talking all these, when incidents such as these and many more occur in abundance in India day in day out. We are sort of used to it. Few of these find coverage in the media and few do not depending on the location of the events and also on the accessibility and penetration factor for media coverage. But incidents such as these are a part and parcel of life in this colorful nation and that’s exactly what Mark Tully, has covered in his book, 'The Heart of India'. I completed reading the book which is full of color, noise and scent, akin to desi lifestyle.

Mark Tully needs no introduction, for he is well known for covering many major incidents in South Asia during his tenure as a reporter. What sets him apart from other reporters is his deep involvement in the tinges of this land, his genuine love and in-depth, innate understanding of India's psyche. 'The Heart of India' is a not a coffee book of Indian hinterland but rather it delves sensitively into the nuances and shades of everyday life in villages of the northeast states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The author writes in the preface part of the book that he chose this region of India because it has remained largely unaltered from ancient times and also for the fact that, Hindi is widely spoken in that belt and he is quite comfortable with the language. Time and tides have come and gone, but this region has not changed much.

Tully has also mentioned that most of the chronicles, are true but he has tampered those a bit here and there to add an element of imagination and fiction. The stories revolve around the social requirements of childbearing and how a barren lady conceives after a visit to a holy man, the false superbia that is attached to the Indian caste system and the toxic syrup that is drunk in regular dosages to keep the engine of administration moving both at the local bodies and the state level, corruption. The writing is soaking because, Tully doesn't swim at the surface level, rather he dives into the ground level writing with great detail about the degrees of gossip, ghar ghar ki kahani and the lack of privacy in village life. In one of the tales, he tells about the erosion of the old rural India, by the careless rush towards modernization through the lens of an old Muslim ikkab-puller who owns a dilapidated horse-carriage, a vehicle which has turned unserviceable in an age of auto-rickshaws. In another, he narrates the story of Madhu, who leaves her village to do a B.Ed degree at the famous BHU, becomes an active participant in college politics, falls in love and then life takes a never anticipated turn as her romance ends in blackmail. A tale of reality check, of a life hedged with numerous limitations. He also examines how the people have tagged many things in the name of religion, while they are in a state of disarray or confusion when it comes to differentiating between ritual and reality. Tully's unhesitating assumption of his characters illustrates life as it is, in a heartfelt manner. It's not like he wishes to show the good side and cover up the not-so-good side. The stories don't paint an idyllic picture.

The book gives the feeling of a letter written by someone while traveling in a 2nd class sleeper compartment of Indian railways, drinking chai with the sight of Indian hinterland dancing in a graceful and rhythmical way in the window frames. I also felt that, Tully has listed in a subtle way the obstacles that India has to overcome in its march towards attaining the status of economic powerhouse.

This book may not be one of the finest of Tully's creations (my perception though), but definitely it gives a vivid and true portraiture of village life. It also educates those, who grew up in cities within India and outside, and are a bit cut off from the ground realities about India's complex social, cultural and political matrix that persist even after we have undergone a dramatic change from a third world country to under developed nation to a developing economy.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2009-02-14T21:38:00.002+05:30

V-Day Wishes...

Wishing you all a Happy V-Day.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2009-02-09T02:52:00.007+05:30

Celebrating Love Writing Contest...

This is the time of the year, when love is in the air. Ooops, now I would be under the radar of the various groups who have taken upon themselves the burden of upholding Indian 'tradition' and 'cultural values', for the starting statement of the post or am I safe?

Fine let us get to the main point and like the fringe elements, not waste our time, creating issues out of non-issues. I also feel that participating in this fun-filled event won't even attract an iota of disgrace or generate a feeling of shame, which few young ladies in Mangalore faced. The young ladies suffered the ignominy of being beaten, trashed, and molested by a band of preservers of Indian values, for the crime they committed of visiting a pub.

Since what I am going to tell you involves fiddling with your writing implements, scrambling words, so I guess both you and me are safe.

Post liberalization in 1990's, along with the economic revolution that was witnessed in India, gave birth to class of neo-rich, a clan that traveled to foreign lands with greater frequency for better opportunities in all spheres of life and business assignments. Did this tribe, import the culture of fancy dinners, exchange of greetings cards, offering gifts, etc to mark the romantic moments in one's life? Is V-Day another decadent influence of the West, because our parents and grand parents never celebrated this day? We all know that our parents cared for each other and so did our grand parents, but they didn't earmark a separate day to express their love and caring. Was our society conservative then and now it is more open and broad-minded and hence this transformation. Is it as simple as this or a bucketful of linkages have to be coupled to provide some convincing views?

See, slowly the momentum is gathering. So all you have to do is use your fresh and vibrant words to express your views, of course not just on what I broached about above, but on any topic celebrating love in all its shades. Desicritics is conducting a Valentine's Day Contest - Celebrating Love writing contest. Anyone and everyone can participate in this contest, with a simple condition that all the posts should be about or relate to love in its many forms. More details here.

You don't have to be a Robert Grant or a Heidelberg or a Shakespeare to participate, just spin your thoughts, sew your words deftly and weave your own story or sonnet. Also your write-up can be sentimental or funny, fiction or a true story, a memoir or a photo-essay - the choice is completely yours. For instance, Deepti goes down the memory lane when she was in her early teens to tell the Love Remembered between her grandpa and grandma.

Romance and Love cause all of us to get teary eyed. Some stories have tragic endings and some make us wish that we would also experience the highs of love.

Just scribble, you know why? Because, simple words make the maximum impact.

Hasratien dil me dabane se kya haasil hoga
Apne hoth hila kar to dekho
Khamoshi se kab hoti hai khwahishein poori
Dil ki baat bata kar to dekho
Jo hai dil mei use kar do bayaan
Khud ko ek baar jata kar to dekho

I intentionally didn't do the translation because it kills the flavor and piquancy of the message.

'Yes you can', says RC. 'It's simple. Just pick up your pen and .....'

Keep reading and remain connected.

2009-01-27T03:06:00.004+05:30

That's how 26th January was...

The day was 26th January, a very important day for Indians as this was the day when we were declared a Republic in 1950. For me this day definitely evokes warm memories from my childhood. Those were days, when Republic Day meant going to school early in the morning in the cold winter to participate in the flag hoisting ceremony and making sure to collect chocolates, candies and sweets distributed at the end of the ceremony. Once back home, the Republic Day Parade broadcasted live on the idiot box from Rajpath, Delhi was unquestionably the program to watch. In present times, the day still holds its significance but I am sure the way we look at it has changed a hell lot.

For many it was nothing more than an extended weekend. For few others, it was a welcome break from steering their vehicles in the chaotic traffic. Instead it was a day marked by an air of relaxation, to sit and watch columns of soldiers marching in perfect harmony in different Republic Day events conducted across the nation in various television channels. Add to this, the display of tableaus showcasing the diversity and the varied cultural traditions of the nation.

But for me, this was another day to capture colors in the surroundings. I had been to Lalbagh Gardens, Bangalore early in the morning by 8:00AM to compose some frames from the Republic Day Flower Show organized at the glass house located in the center of the garden.

This flower exhibition dates back to the year 1922, when it was conducted for the first time, and since then this once-in-an-year event has seen a steady increase in entries for participation.

Lots of people had come with friends and families to see this exhibition, a carnival of colors. From whatever I saw there, my rough estimate is that around 200 flowering plants, mostly those that bloom in the winter season were on display.

Through my camera lens, I managed to capture some images, which had little to do with flowers and more to do with colors. It was as if everything were united by a riot of colors. Do you agree with me or you don't?

Apart from this, there were a number of stalls related to gardening in which companies such as Indo-American Hybrid Seeds, Namdhari Seeds, the Department of Horticulture, Coconut Development Board, Coir Development Board, etc exhibited their products and technologies.

Booths selling products from cottage industries also drew handsome crowd. The artisans displayed their rich crafts such as pots, vases, urns, molded images, trinkets, pottery and terracotta items, etc in the typical setting of a rural Indian marketplace

To ensure security when hooligans have turned moralistic leaders, when terrorists are recklessly determined to spew terror, special security arrangements had been put in place. Door frame metal detectors, hand metal detectors and cameras were deployed at several places for efficient tracking purposes.

All in all, it was two hours of time well spent.

Also, the day was noteworthy for another reason. It was the day, when Desicritics, turned three. A journey which started with around 75 bloggers in the desi blogosphere way back in 2006, today has grown into a family of 500, covering everything from nuclear deals to macaca-gate, from Bugti to Boston, from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button to Slumdog Millionaire, from the US Economy Fears to the Satyam's Fraud case, from men's rights to reservation rights. RC is proud to be a member of that team, still miles to go.

So here goes the rest from the lot of my today’s clicks to my friends at Desicritics and to all my readers. Hope you liked it too.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2009-01-16T23:50:00.002+05:30

Smell of an Indian Bazaar...

It was long since I had been out to shoot with my shutterbug friends. When I got an invite, if I could join them for a weekend shot at Russel Market, one of the prominent landmarks for the native Bangalorites, I thought why not. The reply was prompt because I have always preferred colder climes and at present winter is in full flourish. Also, wintertime mornings are usually marked with less activity and lots of freshness rules the air.

So all set and done and I reach the market place at 6:30AM. The market place was a melange of action, buying, selling, trading, chaffering, transporting, cleaning and lots more.

Russel Market is one of the oldest markets in Bangalore and it was built in 1927. The freshly painted minaret that stands across the road is a testimony that this place which was once the frequented by the memsahibs driven in their carriages is now replaced by the Marutis, the Fords and the Toyotas.

Even though the city today offers plenty of departmental stores from Sunday-to-Monday to Food World, from Reliance Fresh to Nilgiris, from Spencers to Spar but still there is a sizeable population that visits this bazaar for its weekly stock of fruits and vegetables and other requirements. The building that accommodates close to 100 vegetable shops and mandis today looks a bit jaded.

This place has narrow streets, filled with people unloading mini-trucks ladened with fresh vegetables and fruits. At one corner an old woman is selling a handful of vegetables, while at the other corner there is a middle-aged lady making a garland with different kinds of flowers, sipping hot tea from a glass. Even found a man who was so bitten by Bipasha Basu's 'Beedi Jalai le', that early in the morning he was puffing his jigar maan bari aag in a foolhardy way.

At this early hour of the day, there is action all around as vegetable vendors were busy sorting the vegetables into gunny bags which would be sent to various restaurants and hotels across the city. This place is a trading center for flowers, and florists can be seen exchanging their supply for cash. The topsy-turvyness here is more complex than what one would find in any stock exchange when in action.

As I was walked a little ahead, I saw the central courtyard, where there were neatly arranged rows of meat shops. Strung up were fresh cuts of mutton with hooks. Adjacent to the dark alleys of meat shops, dimly lit with bulbs is the street, which is a must visit place for any sea-food lover.

Variety of fish, prawn, crab, squid, etc of all sizes were available and the best part is it was all fresh stock unlike the refrigerated and preserved ones sold in department stores. This place is a beehive of activity and chances are high that a visitor would soil his/her clothes while purchasing sea-food here.

It was 8:30AM by now and people returning from the early hours mass at the nearby church were indicative of city life about to get started in a while. I along with my friend, proceeded to a nearby shop, which offers chai 24/7 and while having the chai, a person rushed hurriedly towards me. Seeing, a camera in my hand he told, 'Saab ek photo aap jaldi se lea lo, abhi thodi deear maain guard ke naukri ke liye, ek interview hai' [Can you take a pic immediately because I have an interview for the post of a guard to attend]. I had to politely decline to his request as my camera, doesn't have the instant printing capabilities.

Don't be surprised when I saw, you can click and publish pictures instantly, infact you can do this something similar to the Polaroid cameras of the 70’s. This year PoGo, an Instant Digital Camera unveiled at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, allows one with a push of a button to take pictures, edit those and then print those on full-colour, 2x3-inch prints. Can someone gift me one of those :)

You can see the rest of the pics here.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-12-31T15:24:00.004+05:30

New Year Wishes...

We wept, we cried, we lost, we gained, we fell, we stood up, we were bewildered and confused, we tripped the light fantastic toe, we learnt, we un-learnt, we made mistakes, we made strong allegiances and also pointed fingers at our foes, we rebelled, we read, we blogged, we traveled, we consumed, we foundered, we made headway, we dreamt, we innovated, we embarked the ride on global recession's whammy, but as the year comes to an end we got apprehensive about what next.

Arre, whatever be it, just 'Yes We Can' is my slogan, your song, as is Obama's hope, that today ricochets across the Web. Two brothers Gregg and Evan Spiridellis founders of JibJab, have put a short video which chronicles some of the major tales of this year.

I wish you, your family and friends a very Happy New Year. A beaming smile, a warm embrace and lots of good wishes to you all. You know why? Because you are simply the best in whoever and whatever you are. My simple gift for you with my first attempt on animation juxtaposed on one of the pics taken long back.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-12-29T00:06:00.005+05:30

The White Tiger...

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, starts off in an unusual format as a series of letters addressed to Wen Jiabao, the Premier of China by a Bangalore-based entrepreneur, Ashok Sharma spread over a span of seven nights. The Chinese Premier is excited to learn how India is able to churn out so many entrepreneurs in spite of so many stumbling blocks in various domains of life.

Apparently, sir, you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don’t have entrepreneurs. And our nation though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy or punctuality, does have entrepreneurs.

In short this is the story of the transformation of a man born as a servant to the rich and elite, from Munna to Balram Halwai to Ashok Sharma, the successful entrepreneur. The story is narrated in a one-to-one conversation format with few relevant touches of wit, sarcasm and dark humor. The first person narration is simple and straight-forward.

The main protagonist of the story is born and brought up in a remote North Indian village. To meet the needs of his family, he drops out of school at the age of eight to work in a tea shop. Well a different godsend script is composed for him, to leave the village and become the chauffeur for a rich family. In his chequered career as a chauffeur, Balram Halwai sees life from different perspectives, the good, the bad, the ugly, the honest, the dishonest, the corrupt, the moral, the immoral, the jugaad flocks, the maain baap generation and lots more. Finally he decides to make a 'U' turn in his life and that's when he commits the murder of his master, for nothing else but money. The money he acquires by killing his master is siphoned for his entrepreneurial venture, running a cab company in India's technology and outsourcing hot seat, Bangalore. In short this is the story.

So now you can make out why the title of the book is 'The White Tiger'. Just as the white tiger is a very rare species among animals found in the jungle, so is Balram Halwai a very uncommon individual found in the sea of darkness, who crafts and designs his own blueprint for the road ahead.

On the outside it seems that the author has an excellent understanding of the economic changes and its effect of lifestyle, the oft-discussed topic of outsourcing, the class and caste differences in the society and many such related topics. But deep dive a bit and it has a storyline replete with the clichéd images and reflections, written to live up to the expectations of the western audience. The image of once-upon-a-time, the country of darkness, still retaining its share of darkness.

I don't deny the fact that the country is home to cases of brutal injustice, dirty corruption, victimization of the underprivileged by the rich. But but creating a painting on canvas in which each and every stroke of the paint brush portrays an image of extremity gives a very bland taste and a superficial touch to the entire framework. It smells of an outsider's view from a desi's quill.

Set aside these, the author is remarkably skilled in characterization of the people who dictate the plot. The language is very simple, non highbrow and straight-forward. But at certain segments of the plot, I found that the author was struggling with his script and has used repetition of events as fillers.

'I drove the Mongoose to the railway station and got him his favorite snack, the dosa once again, from which I removed the potatoes, flinging them on the tracks, before handing it over to him.'

The above few sentences with mild variations have been mentioned five to six times in the plot, each time the protagonist, Balram Halwai goes to drop another character, the Mongoose at the railway station.

Overall it was an ok-ok-sort of book to read. Rather it was my fault that I had lot of uber expectations from the book, considering that it won the Booker Prize for the year 2008. But one thing, I am very sure about, if Chetan Bhagat's books storyline could form the plot for Bollywood movies, then Adiga's, 'The White Tiger' can definitely book for an eligible Bollywood movie script.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-12-27T13:52:00.004+05:30

Nothing special...

Is there something special about this pic? Does this qualify for a snapshot or a photograph? You decide and tell me.

I just look it early morning on a foggy day, when I was on vacation. The owner of the car had parked his broken-down car, Ambassador, don't think it is manufactured any more these days.

Few details about this pic.

Time : 7:00 A.M. on a foggy day.
Exposure Time : 1/60 or 0.017 seconds
Aperature : f/5.6
ISO : 320
Metering Mode : Matrix
Exposure : Manual

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-12-22T08:58:00.006+05:30

Poppins...

How many times did my uncle, tell me the story of how the universe was formed. With his index finger he would draw the line of a rainbow through the air and tell tales about it's formation in the aftermath of light rainfall, with the sun still shining bright. I still remember, I was in standard two or three then and whenever my uncle realized that concepts were not settling distinctly in my mind, he would pull an edition of Britannica encyclopedia from the book rack and show me the details.

Well, he was to me, my Poppins uncle. I used to visit his house on Saturdays after school, (we used to have half day school on Saturdays) and return back on Sunday night, so that the regular school routine from Monday was not neglected. Every time when I used to leave his place, on a Sunday night, it was a sad faced me, tears rolling down my eyes and a tantrum-filled goodbye. This man, in his late 50s then was a member of the teaching faculty in one of well known technical institutes in India, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela.

I always felt the separation anxiety while leaving on Sunday nights for a number of reasons. First and foremost was, Monday means back to school, getting streamlined for the regular monotonous life again. Other than that, those two days spent in the college campus were literally doses of middle class pampered treatment. Those who have seen any of the IITs or National Institute of Technology or IISc campus, can appreciate better, when I saw the campus is vast, open, lush green, widespread and Brobdingnagian. These are mini townships in themselves and the staff quarters are generally situated in one corner of the unit. Staff quarters have open space and the garden within each quarter's boundary provided the perfect pitch for a game of cricket, cycling, and just run around among the guava, mango and litchi trees playing hide and seek. At evenings, rush to the college campus open-air theater and watch a movie, (am sure this is sort of a ritual in every good campus, of screening movies on weekends at night) and fall asleep in my uncle’s lap half way through the movie.

More than all these, he was one who taught me to write perfectly within the four lines in my notebook to master cursive writing. He was never a teacher to me, just that I felt it more fun and interesting to do something when he asked me to do so. He was the one who instilled in me the pleasure of reading since I was a kid, grew up with Enid Blyton, Hardy Boys books, Tintin and Amar Chitra Katha comics, National Geographic Society magazines, etc.

My downhearted and blue departure from his place on a Sunday night was always buoyed up by a simple gift from my uncle every time. Yes, it's every time. A pack of Poppins and a bar of 5-Star chocolate. So don't you feel, it was pampering, when I had to request my parents many a times to get this share of candies during a 5 day week's time. Fullto masti, reading comics, encyclopedia and no school books, cycling, watching movie in the college campus (cable TV by then was not popular), visiting engineering labs full of boilers and machines such as lathes, drilling machine, etc and last but not the least a pack containing 10 differently colored, button shaped candies. What more do you need?

So that was Poppins uncle to me and to this day, I call him by the same name, though both of us have grown in the past 19 years or so. A couple of weeks back when I saw him at a family function after a long long gap, found that he had grown old, could see wrinkles on his face, hair gone white and he had adorned all the symbols of aging. That's natural, but what I liked about him is that still he is youthful at heart.

True to his keen appreciation for books and keeping in mind the childhood days, he had gifted my elder brother, a book on the eve of his marriage. I even overheard what he transpired to my brother when he handed over the gift in the crowd of guests who had gathered for the reception party.

'I am really proud of you and the kind of individual you have grown up to. Work hard, be smart and make sure that you have a nice life ahead with your partner for life. I also recommend you to open this pack and there is something special inside this. Make sure to read 'this' when you settle back at Chicago'.

Later on, when my brother opened the pack, it was this, a book. Just shows how thoughtful someone can be. Perfect cursive writing.

And there was another small pack, and it had 20 packs of Poppins. A small note was there saying that it was for us brothers. It said 'Even today, the taste of orange, lemon, strawberry, black currant or the pineapple flavored sugary buttons of Poppins is the same, what it was when you were kids.'

Still the words keep resonating in my mind.

Because we live in an age of gross accumulation, flash and displayism. Anything big and showy when it comes to gifting draws more attention. Think 'Bada Hai Toh Behtar Hai', it's the size, the bigness that matters AD from Videocon. But still there are things that generate more compassion and warm sensitivity when it comes to gifting. All it needs to select one of those are attitude, an attitude to embrace the good things of life and in a wordless way of telling someone how much they mean to you or what you think of him/her/them.

This brings to my mind, an unforgettable gift, that one of my friends, a retired newsman and reporter, GV Krishnan had given his friend, Kini. Can you make a wild guess what was that? It was a B2B gift. I know your mind would have thought Business-2-Business for the word B2B, but it stands for Blog-2-Blog. It's the tale of two friends who are now in two different corners of the world but started their career in reporting decades back traveling round the globe.

Kini and I had lost touch with each other when we were still young, wild and experimenting in London. When reconnected, we found ourselves wizened by age, hassles of living, and, in Kini's case, by an incurable ailment. Our re-connect dates back to a mail from him well over a year back, informing me of a change of address. He had shifted base from London (where he had spent four decades) to a chalet bungalow in Herne Bay, Kent - "a geriatric land where one is more likely to see dear old ones scooting around on electric-scooters than young lads on noisy motorbikes". The real message was in Kini's sign-off line that read - 'Uncertainty and hope fills my life at present'.

The complete B2B series is here. Check those, perfect tapestry with words.

Now since this is the time of the year, when people exchange gifts, what gift are you giving me? A pack of Poppins, 'Doooin kya'

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-12-18T18:53:00.009+05:30

Little Fluffy Cotton Candies...

Since we were kids, we always wanted to fly. Fly high above, to see how the earth looks from above and to swim in the clouds. We were taught about different varieties of clouds such as the Cumulus, Stratus, Nimbus and Cirrus. I guess there were lots more but I can re-collect these for now. We used to draw neat diagrams in our Geography workbooks when there were anything related to clouds and I even read the book 'Around the World in 80 Days' always thinking when I will get a chance to fly and go places as Phileas Fogg did.

Hailing from a regular middle class family, I never got an opportunity to fly until I completed my graduation. But still at my early 20's then, for me the clouds meant blotches and patches of cotton puffs floating high up defying the laws of gravity.

The lessons taught in science that clouds are just aggregates of water vapor would sound so fictitious and un-real. It just meant sufficient cotton candies were sprinkled at a higher altitude to gratify all my buddies and school friends when I was a kid.

Ear plugs please. If you have heard of an English electronic music group, The Orb, the above piece is one of their most popular one, composed in 1990. Its again 'Little Fluffy Clouds'.

Later on as time passed, travel became a regular part of my life and I flew miles and miles and saw some of the best panoramas sitting by my flight's window seat. Flying above the Nordic nations during the dying winter season at an early hour when the sun is dressed in its robe of sybaritic lavishness, had offered me some of the best sights of the earth close to the North Pole. Other than that every other city within my country and outside, that I have traveled to offers something special to see when the flight is about to land. For example, when the flight hovered over Paris city before landing at mid-night, the entire city looks like a black bed sheet with small dots of yellow lights. In this ocean of regularity, suddenly you can see a taller and brighter yellow light and my fellow passenger, a native Paris'ian says, 'Hey that's the Eiffel Tower'.

I always opted for a window seat rather than an aisle seat. It's simple the way it works if you wish to get your choicest seat when traveling in economy class. Either stand in the queue first when collecting the boarding pass or have your frequent flying card ready. For me it worked both ways.

But have you ever thought of taking pics when you are traveling miles above the earth's surface. Try it and it's really a different experience altogether.

Some neat tips on how to make your compositions and how to take pics from your plane's window is in a blog here.

Now my mind still keeps racing to my school days when we used to make simple experiments for creating clouds. All one needs are a clear plastic jar, a small metal tray full of ice cubes, and some hot water. Fill the plastic jar till its half full with hot water. On the top lid of the jar, place the metal tray full of ice cubes. After a while one can see the cloud-like formation. What happens is really simple, the air and water vapor inside the jar near to the base of the tray are cooled and temperature falls to a level such that, the air and water vapor condense into water droplets. In a very similar format the clouds are formed in the atmosphere, air rises, cools, and water vapor present in the air condenses into clouds.

Was it too much of gyan? Ah ha, just can't imagine losing interest in the clouds. Even these days, have climbed hills and went out of treks in the early mornings before the city life sets in just to catch the clouds in my lenses. Some days it's luck and some days it's plain disappointment. Whatever be the case, old habits don't die fast and easy. Isn't it.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-12-15T09:52:00.000+05:30

Missed size 10...

A couple of months ago, Steve Ballmer was treated with eggs thrown at him by a college grad while addressing an audience in an University campus. So now, it was Bush's turn. While Bush was in Iraq, delivering his farewell speech on Sunday evening in Baghdad, a man identified as an Iraqi journalist, Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw shoes at him but missed it by a whisker.

Bush here acts really smart and his reflex action is superb. He dips at the right moment and evades the shoes. Well the Iraqi Premier, Nuri al-Maliki also did his bit of immediate spur-of-the-moment rescue act.

The journalist was yelling in Arabic, "This is a farewell ... you dog!" . "You killed the Iraqis!"

A little later, Bush replies to the press, "That was a size 10 shoe he threw at me, you may want to know."

"So what if the guy threw his shoe at me?"

"Let me talk about the guy throwing his shoe. It's one way to gain attention. It's like going to a political rally and having people yell at you. It's like driving down the street and having people not gesturing with all five fingers. ..."

More details here at BBC news.

I am sure Bush is not going to forget this farewell treatment for the rest of his life. This also sets an alarm for him to be extra cautious for his forth coming farewell addresses, which I am sure, is lined up in his schedule before he hands over his baton to Obama.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-11-24T12:48:00.003+05:30

Slumdog Millionaire...

It so happens to me that, many books in my personal collection and those that I have read have plots that form the storyline of a major blockbuster later. Be it Jhumpa Lahiri's 'Namesake' or Mariane Pearl's 'A Mighty Heart' or Dan Brown's 'Da Vinci Code' and many more. I don't know why but the words sinks in better for me or is it because after reading a book, I form my own framework and don't like it to be altered for good or for not-so-good.

Recently while reading an article on the internet, it freshened my mind that I had read something on similar lines, about a year back. What's that?

Well, those who have read the Vikas Swarup's spectacular debut novel, Q&A can read my mind. It's the story of Ram Mohammad Thomas, a (don't be surprised about the name, the book has more details.) poor orphan who can't read a newspaper and has never attended school but goes on to win India's biggest quiz show, Who Will Win a Billion? answering all twelve questions on dot to the point. Each chapter in this book untangles how an incident or episode in the deprived individual's life provided an answer to each question.

Plot is brilliant and it's the story of struggle between good and evil, a reality check by a very young boy who has no other choice in life but to survive.

Now from what I can make out from the plot line of Danny Boyle's 'Slumdog Millionaire' is that it has dotted link to Q&A's plot. I may be correct or in-correct in my view because I have not seen the movie, just guessing from what I have read so far.

The chief protagonists are Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), his brother Salim and Latika played in her adult avatar by Freida Pinto. The movie 'Slumdog Millionaire' is quickly finding a widespread audience and has been acknowledged world over though its casting list is a bit obscure for now, leave apart Anil Kapoor and Irfan Khan. Freida Pinto who had made a few TV appearances and hosted a travel show is making her debut with this movie.

Pinto feels that "Slumdog" captures the Mumbai she knows better than any film she's seen, despite its having been directed by a Brit (although Tandan, who receives a co-director credit for the film, was apparently instrumental in making sure dialogue and situations were culturally accurate).

As for her own work, Pinto says, "It was literally like I'd put in 22 years of research, just everything I'd seen in my life, without knowing I would ever do a film like "Slumdog".

You know, my name is Latika.

The frames marvel of color and music and life in Boyle’s Mumbai. The scenes of kids running, jumping, scaling trash heaps expresses the existential climate that thrives in one part of the metropolis. That's reality and you and I know that. The music is downright Rahmanistic. Isn't it, try it yourself.

The movie is already out there in theaters, and methinks I will go and watch this movie in the cinema hall. Are you going too?

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-11-17T09:40:00.002+05:30

It's foggy today...

the rhythm's festival is on
someone weaving wet water reeds
today also there is smoke
the mood is laid back
no mood for bits and bytes
need a book and some chai
similar days spent in scotland
chasing my thoughts
only that my breath was colder.

but then i am to put back
all these frames
....to get back to life.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-11-13T06:29:00.009+05:30

Postcards from Bylakuppe...

There is a riot of colors which I can feel, when the vehicle accelerates on a dust-covered road, its noise annunciating modernity's further invasion of a calm form of society. Which is this new place?

Whenever anyone talks about Tibetans in India, the places that pop up in our minds are Darjeeling and Dharamasala. But there is one such settlement down south where there is a fully grown community in the town of Bylakuppe, near Mysore, 250 km from Bangalore. Apparently, after Tibet was invaded in the year 1959, the State of Karnataka offered land to any Tibetan who wanted to settle in this land. Quite a huge number of people accepted this offer and today this small patch of land is home to a magnanimous temple and a Buddhist monastery.

This is named as the Namdroling Monastery, often called the Golden Temple of South India. The title 'Golden Temple' is befitting because the structures are bathed with a layer of glittering gold, and this make the edifices more conspicuous from a far off distance.

There is a series of structures and each of these looks more or less the same. As I entered the monastery, the air was absorbed with chants and loud voices of Lamas reading something. I feel they were rote learning some slogans from scriptures which seemed to have been written ages back. They were dressed in ochre and red robes.

The monotone of drum beatings and pipes intermittently filled the environment because it was the prayer time and all the disciples were busy with their respective activities.

Once I entered the main entrance hall of the monastery, I was awe-struck by the grandness and richness of three larger than life gold plated gigantic statues sitting on a platform.

Richly painted murals dolled up the walls and even the ceilings. Dragons twirled up the walls. Colors, colors and colors and nothing but colors are what define the interiors of the main temple of the monastery.

Since most my friends were in a hurry to drive back, I had to listen to them even though I wished to spend some more time at this place. All I had with me was half an hour so I was not able to capture some interesting compositions of the monks. I cannot take pics in a hurried situation. For me what works the best is, go to the place, trip around and see things and then, when the elements are in their most natural form, make my own frames and click pics bindaas.

Seems we got a bit derailed here, let's get on track again. One more striking feature is the myriad hues of flags that one can see fluttering in all corners of this structure. Is it the embodiment of hope? A hope for an independent state after having made an epic journey so far.

Or is it that the road ahead seems a bit dark and direction less.

More details about this place are here.

Also don't miss shutterbug, Anita Bora's post soaked with some brilliant pics here.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-11-07T09:09:00.004+05:30

Just like that...

There was nothing special about this composition. Just in the wild bush something had grown and this was during a trip to a hill resort. Somehow it caught my senses and even though I had gone few yards ahead, took a few steps back and clicked it.

I don't know if it came out the perfect way. But something came at the end and that's what you see above.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-11-04T18:47:00.007+05:30

Vote and Grab a free Coffee....

Yesterday, while I was reading the New York Times online (nytimes.com), I found an AD by Starbucks before it could let me read the front page. Later, I learnt that Starbucks is offering a free cup of coffee to anyone and everyone who vote on the 4th of November'08 for the US Presidential elections.

Now, a questions is it a conscious initiative to stimulate civic participation or is it a ploy to jack up its own business which is going through a tough patch during a period of economic downturn when 600 of the 7,200 Starbucks branches in America were planned for shutdown a couple of months back.

Whatever be it, I unquestionably vouch for the fact that drinking coffee, makes one feel good. Definitely so after you have come out from the voting booth, after having cast your ballot. The hope remains, may be my vote would make a difference.

So ahead, vote and grab a free coffee at Starbucks.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-11-04T06:35:00.007+05:30

The Last Lecture...

I generally don't like reading autobiographical books, but sometime back, I had picked a book after reading reviews about it. It was for the simple reason that I was thrilled when I heard the first few minutes of a lecture (nah nah not the kinds that we have in grad schools, anyways I was always a last bencher) by the central character of the book on iTunes. To me it is always more pleasurable to read a book, rather than to see it, converted into a movie or a television series.

So pause, pause after 2 minutes of viewing the video on my iPod and I made sure I read this book. For all those who believe that 'The Last Lecture' would be a gyan book considering the word 'lecture' in its title, please don't be misguided. Once you have completed reading it, you would realize the real worth of this book. I am not sure, if someone would buy my views but that's how I felt once I flipped the last page of this book.

The Last Lecture is a book on Randy Pausch, a Computer Science professor at Carnegie Mellon. It centers around a remarkable speech he gave - Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams after being diagnosed with terminal cancer on September 18, 2007. The book is simple and talks about living a satisfying and productive life and these are cited by means of incidents that Pausch confronted and faced in his personal life. That’s why people say, there is no better classroom in this world than 'Life'. This word of wisdom may sound hypothetical but that's true to the core.

I felt the kernel of what Pausch wants to convey is that, dream, dream, dream and work towards it.

"Almost all of us have childhood dreams; for example, being an astronaut, or making movies or video games for a living. Sadly, most people don't achieve theirs, and I think that's a shame. I had several specific childhood dreams, and I've actually achieved most of them. More importantly, I have found ways, in particular the creation (with Don Marinelli), of CMU's Entertainment Technology Center of helping many young people actually *achieve* their childhood dreams."

"It's not about how to achieve your dreams, it's about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the dreams will come to you."

Randy Pausch, was recognized as a pioneer in human-computer interaction and design, and one of the very first person who worked extensively on virtual reality research. Although diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer in September 2006, it was his spirit and zest for life that won him accolades as a teacher and a mentor. Though he is no more, (he left this world on July 25th, 2008) he has left behind a treasured legacy.

One of the most important points that Pausch speaks about that impressed me was 'Head Fake'. What's that?

When we send our kids to play organized sports -football, soccer, swimming, whatever - for most of us, it's not because we're desperate for them to learn the intricacies of the sport.

What we really want them to learn is far more important: teamwork, perseverance, sportsmanship, the value of hard work, an ability to deal with adversity. This kind of indirect learning is what some of us like to call a 'head fake."

There are two kinds of head fakes. The first is literal. On a football field, a player will move his head one way so you'll think he's going in that direction. Then he goes in the opposite way. It’s like a magician using misdirection. Coach Graham used to tell us to watch a player's waist. "Where his belly button goes, his body goes," he'd say.

The second kind of head fake is the really important one - the one that teaches people things they don't realize they're learning until well into the process. If you're a head fake specialist, your hidden objective is to get them to learn something you want them to learn.

Limpid style of telling things and it’s so simple that it aplies to each and every aspect of our lives. Pausch mentions in his book that, there were few hidden intentions of delivering the speech, Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams at the University.

"The lecture was for my kids, but if others are finding value in it, that is wonderful," Pausch wrote on his Web site. "But rest assured; I'm hardly unique."

This was probably the best gift he would have offered his three kids: Dylan, Logan and Chloe who would miss their father when they grow up. Kids definitely bask in the warm cocoon of their fathers and their presence makes life more meaningful. One of my friends, Kishore has written a letter to his father and sent it with the hope that he would reply to it soon.

"Under the ruse of giving an academic lecture, I was trying to put myself in a bottle that would one day wash up on the beach for my children."

Pausch loved his wife, a lot and this lecture was his gift to his wife whose birthday was on the same day, as he delivered the speech. Before concluding his talk, he invited his wife, Jai to the stage, embraced her and the entire crowd sang 'Happy Birthday' song for her. Another head fake, if you got it.

What goes deep down and finally settles after reading this book is the message of optimism. When Pausch was asked on the day of his lecture, 'What was the best thing that had happened to him that day?'

He replied, "Well, first off, I'd say the day's not over yet. So there's always a chance that there will be a new best."

Well, can one think of a reply that is more optimistic and affirmative than this, when one knows that six months down the line there is no road ahead?

A jubilant read definitely for book lovers. For others, even though you can watch the entire lecture on some forums or video website on the internet, just try on this book. And I am pretty sure each and every word would distill and settle down as you turn the pages.

Keep reading and remain connected.

(Note: None of the pictures used in this post are taken by me.)

2008-10-30T07:24:00.002+05:30

Weekend @ Kabini...

There are times in life when there are lots of tasks to be attended and heart in heart one feels, that one needs a break to get perked up again. This is exactly what happened to me, when in the midst of lot of activities, I had the opportunity to visit Kabini and spend a day there in the Jungle Lodges and Resort.

Kabini is a river in Karnataka that passes through a picturesque terrain before joining the Kaveri near Mysore. The Kabini Jungle Lodges and Resort (KJLR) has been rated among the top five wildlife resorts in the world by Tatler's way back in 1995 but I am not sure if it still retains that ranking today.

Situated at a distance of 220 kilometers from Bangalore, a drive to reach this place in five to six hours by road is the most preferred option for most of the visitors. More so this place is close to the Nagarhole Wildlife Sanctuary, Wayanadu Wildlife Sanctuary, Bandipur National Park and the Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary, parts of which are visible during the river ride inside the jungle.

We reached KJLR by 2:00 in the afternoon. At the reception we were apprised about the rules and regulations of the resort and some simple guidelines to follow during our stay for a day there. The KJLR has colonial style architecture and can accommodate around 50 people, so advance booking for this place during the peak season is must. There are around 14 colonial style double rooms with modern amenities, 10 twin-bedded cottages and 6 tented cottages.

The accommodation is very comforting and satisfying but for those people who are used to TV and air conditioners, sorry, one won't get either of the two at KJLR. Personally I too feel that its incongruous and such luxuries shouldn’t find place in a jungle resort. It's a complete eco-friendly resort and noise of any form be it load music or partying late night is strictly prohibited here.

Food during lunch, breakfast and dinner is served in buffet style in the common dining area called the Ghol Ghar that overlooks River Kabini. I really enjoyed the food, that I had here, which mainly comprised of Indian dishes, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian. Even breakfast was filling and there was a rich variety such as bread, omelette, fruit juice, dosa, idli, vaada, upma, etc along with the regular entremetses.

Leave the food part, let's get into the real action now. The first day after lunch, we took some rest in the hammocks before we started for our wildlife safari at 4:00 P.M. in the evening. The initial half an hour drive of our safari was through a small village, which is situated on the periphery of the forest. Once we entered the heart of the forest, our guide, a naturalist instructed us to be as silent as possible. So all that one could hear was the sound of engine and the tyres ruckling down the jungle road. The undefiled smell of the forest was all around us. As we drove in the open jeep, we could feel the crisp evening wind on our faces, something similar to the cool effect one gets on having a mouth freshener.

Since that day was cloudy and there were early signs of rain, spotting elephants was out of question. Suddenly our vehicle came to a jerky stop because our guide had spotted a leopard camouflaged in the branches of a tree about 200 meters from the road.

We saw lots of wild dogs, bisons, sambhars, crested hawk eagles and herds of spotted deers. Our guide told us that a pack of seven or eight wild dogs can shoot down a tiger in few seconds, even though these creatures appear to be so harmless.

The best part of the safari was when we were about to return, it started raining cats and dogs. The rain drops were striking us like tiny boulders with great force. We were in the middle of the jungle, and it was twilight by now, and because of the rain, there was practically no visibility. Since I was in an open jeep, I wanted to enjoy the rain, but before doing so made sure that my camera was safe in my kitbag.

That day at night, had a wholesome dinner and spent some time with my friends before hitting the bed. Early morning, I woke up by 5:00 A.M. and was able to capture the nature in its true colors. I didn’t use any filters or any post-processing for this photograph. It was taken just like any other snap, and the end result was this.

At 8:00 A.M. we started for our 3 hour boat ride and it offered to me the perfect setting for taking some landscape shots while on the boat.

I spotted some birds in the middle of the river, right in the bowels of the jungle.

Our guide gave us tons of information anytime we spotted a new bird. We had even spotted a crocodile very near to this congregation of tree trunks egressing from the surface of the water like forks. But probably, it was the sound of the motor engine, that disturbed the crocodile and it disappeared inside the colored water like a shot.

The journey was refreshing and all, I could see around was water, lush greenery and some birds chirping in the air. At that moment our boat rider, diverted our vessel and paved our way towards a bamboo jungle adjacent to the river bed, where tigers come to have water at night. We even saw the carcass of a spotted deer that was killed by a tiger, the previous day night.

I didn't realize how time passed and we were back to the resort after an unforgettable river ride.

For those of you who want to pamper themselves with a traditional massage, the KJLR has facilities for an Ayurvedic massage center, run by a family from Kerala. I went there and checked the prices and those were very decent. By this time, it was 12:00 P.M. in the noon and the custodians of the resort informed us that it was time to check out because the cleaning has to be done before another gang of visitors come by 2:00 P.M. in the afternoon.

If someone asks me, Kabini is a good weekend getaway for nature lovers and KJLR is a perfect place to stay in cottages in sylvan surroundings. The rates are not very high too, considering that it includes food, stay, jungle safari and river ride.

Complete album is here.

Warning: The carcass pic may be disturbing for few readers.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-10-26T19:06:00.003+05:30

Diwali Wishes...

May this festival of lights, light up your life.
May the glow of the divas usher in good times for you and your family.
Live upto your dreams and keep moving...

Wishing you and your family a very Happy Diwali.

More about Diwali here.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-10-25T13:12:00.004+05:30

Click Maadi...

They all line up, from the eldest to the youngest for the breakfast served in a buffet format in a resort. I was standing at one corner and could see some perfect frames in my viewfinder. Just then I could feel someone pulling my t-shirt.

'Hurry up, Dhruv. Have your breakfast soon' a mid aged lady's voice says.

'Mama is calling, but can you take a nice pic of myself and my brother, Dhruv', the individual who had pulled my t-shirt says this.

I turn back and see, Shruti.

The brother and sister, immediately link arms and the sister who is elder between the two hugs his brother. I took a picture and immediately both the kids, unlink and rush to see how both of them appear in the photograph.

Shruti says, 'See, I am looking nice' but Dhruv see you have something on your face.

Post 2000, was the period when the online social networks, the nets of relationship that grow using high-tech socially engineered websites took the world by storm. Starting from Orkut, to Linkedin to Flickr to MySpace to Facebook, each of these sites serve a purpose, but stands unfaltering on the concept of networking. In each of these cases, the webs grow from conversations among people who share common interests, yet who differ in other ways such as living halfway across other side of the globe. All this is fine.

I don't know and even some may even laugh at it but I consider a camera, a tool of networking aside from its exclusive purpose of capturing and storing experiences, panoramas, cycloramas, etc. I met Shruti and Dhruv through my camera and till date have met many others within India and abroad through the small window of my viewfinder. There is always the lure of the unknown, something new.

The pic below is one of a Panditji, whom I had met in a solitary and unfrequented temple on a hill, where the mobile signals fail and there is no internet connection. It was pretty dull and foggy that day and this person, came forward and told me if I could take a snap of his.

My reply, sure, why not. After I took the picture, Panditji, saw his image on the view finder, and was impressed. He rushed inside the temple and came out with a small chit of paper, in which he had written the address of the temple, of which he is the owner and the steward. He asked me if I could send him a hard copy of his photograph.

Similarly, sometime back I had mentioned about an incident, when I was offered a yard long dosa for free.

(Note: The gentleman who prepared the foot-long dosa that you see in the pic, didn't charge me a single penny because he liked the pic that I took for him. I requested him and told him that this was not fair as he deserved his due, but he smiled and asked if he could meddle with my camera for a while. So this post is for that humble soul.)

So what are you waiting for, start clicking pictures. It may be your style of social networking and who knows, you can come with a new big bang idea that challenges Mark Zuckerberg dude.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-10-06T06:28:00.003+05:30

Want to be a part of it? M.I.L.K. ....

Yesterday, while reading on the internet, I read about a contest that would excite many people who often wish to capture the best moments of life and otherwise in their lenses.

The contest titled M.I.L.K.(Moments of Intimacy, Laughter and Kinship) is open to any photographer and that’s the best part of it.

To give a small background about this contest, it goes like this. In 1999, British publisher Hodder Headline (now Hachette Livre) held a global photographic competition called M.I.L.K., inspired by the 1950s landmark photographic exhibition, 'The Family of Man'. The main motive behind this event was to offer an open platform for photographers and search for unique and geographically diverse images on the themes of friendship, family and love.

The results were praise worthy as it turned out to be not only one of the richest photographic collections in history, but also one of the most significant, drawing participation from 17,000 professional and amateur photographers in 164 countries. In total over 40,000 images were received by M.I.L.K., including at least four Pulitzer Prize winners. The 300 winning images were chosen by the Chief Judge, Magnum photographer Elliott Erwitt, and were the basis for three books entitled Family, Friendship and Love and an international touring exhibition launched at New York's Grand Central Terminal in 2001.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the original M.I.L.K. competition, M.I.L.K. Licensing (now a subsidiary of PQ Blackwell), again in association with Elliott Erwitt, is conducting a new competition, this year. It is based on the on the themes of friends, families, lovers and laughter to create a new collection of 150 images from across the world.

The photographers would be judged on the basis of these simple requirements.

• The Images that celebrate friendship, family and love.
• Images that tell stories and convey real emotion.
• Images that evoke a humorous response.
• Technical quality.

The contest is open till the 31st Dec'08. Ah ha that's a long way to go. And with the season of festivities and togetherness just starting, think Dusshera, think Diwali, think Thanksgiving, think Christmas, the canvas is just open to paint each one's own composition on the themes that celebrate friendship, family and love.

The contest offers $125,000 as prize money, with the winner getting $50,000 as cash prize. In the end the top 150 pictures would be included in the coming up publication of 'Fresh M.I.L.K.: Friends, Families, Lovers & Laugher', which is scheduled to be printed in autumn 2009. All featured photographers will retain copyright on their images in exchange for granting M.I.L.K. a non-exclusive license.

For more information, regarding how/where to submit the images online, FAQs and other details check the site here.

Does this pic, celebrate friendship, family and love? You decide. But let me try out some other compositions using my frames for this contest and wish you do too. All the best.

Keep reading and remain connected.

(This pic was taken when the mother had left the puppies for a while in search of some food and I made sure to click this without disturbing their natural moods.)

2008-10-03T07:14:00.002+05:30

(Fog)ged...

It was long since, I last went to Nandi Hills, one of the most tranquil locations, situated about 60 kms. from Bangalore city. Since Oct'2nd was going to be a leave from work, some of my friends who are die-hard shutterbugs had planned for a visit to this place, early in the morning. One of my friends, Sd took the initiative of driving four others, to this place by 4AM. For Sd, this is not something new, when he was in the US for his post graduation about ten years ago, he used to drive all the desis to the University from the airport, when they came to the campus for the first time. Even though Sd today manages his own industrial establishment and is a proud father of two kids, the long drive bug is still ingrained in his blood. That's why people say, old habits can't die the easy way.

We were all fortunate that the weather was just the way as we had anticipated. Dense fog embraced the entire atmosphere and there was absolutely zero visibility. Clouds were swimming past our vehicle as we ascended the terrain, gazing the tips of the trees. The wild flowers and the leaves had flexed under the weight of the water droplets. It was as if, the elements of the nature had just returned from a 'sauna' bath.

The term 'sauna' bath reminds me of my days in the Finnish city of Helsinki, where I used to stay in a place just by the side of a lake in Espoo. To the best of my knowledge, the concept of 'sauna' bath has its roots in Finnish culture. I used to walk across the woods daily in the midst of fog, murkiness in the air to reach my work destination. I had voluntarily, declined to the car that was offered to me, so that I could walk thorough the woods.

No more digression and lets get back to Nandi Hills.

The beauty of going to this place early morning is that, one can expect the unexpected role-plays that nature can perform. At one point, the clouds were just above us, thinning and thickening, providing a shifting mysterious view of the landscape. Trust me there were moments when the camera lens was set for a shot but then the clouds, traveled and the entire composition was distorted.

And then hardly, we had crossed 200 meters and the time gap would be about 20 minutes that we got to see first rays of the sun kissing the macrocosm. This is what is called 'equality', equal distribution of rays to one and all, birds, animals, human beings, and come to think of it, anything and everything.

Don't you think that these days, in our day-to-day lives, confidence and optimism have given way to fear, uncertainty and gloom? Am, I making a confused and an empty statement here?

Let's take the example of how the global financial market was severely wounded in the last ten days. Just as these two individuals are gulped by the clouds and their presence from the perspective of visibility is one of blurred outlines, similarly Wall Street giants such as Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and few others got lost in the financial market haze.

I promised that I won't digress from the topic but I did....... and agree, agree, agree that's my bad.

One sincere request to all the visitors to Nandi Hills. Keep this place neat and clean and don't make a mess out of beer bottles, plastic bottles and polythene bags. Isn't it nice that when you reach there, you can literally feel few words through the human senses: freshness, unflappability, zero-pollution (both noise and environment), tranquility and ................. pressing click-click button for the next photograph?

Keep reading and remain connected.

(All the pics were shot between 5 A.M. and 7 A.M.)

2008-09-22T01:15:00.006+05:30

Good Morning...

For the last couple of days, I was pre-occupied with some work and was desperately looking for something refreshing. And Saturday night while having a late dinner, one of my friends called me and asked if I could join him for a visit to the Hebbal Lake early morning on Sunday to take some pictures.

My immediate reply, 'Yes'.

We started a bit late, with respect to the time line that we had planned, but guess that’s OK. Especially during weekends, the planned and plotted life takes a different course. It was a bit cloudy, by the time we reached Hebbal Lake.

Hebbal Lake is located in the northern part of Bangalore, along Bellary Road covering nearly 150 acres in area. It is one of the three lakes founded in 1537 by Kempe Gowda and today it is maintained by Sate Forest Department. It has a wide variety of aquatic vegetation and a large number of birds live around it. And that's the reason, there were few other photographers, most of them were professional, ready to capture these creatures through their lenses, by the time we reached the spot.

The Hebbal Lake alone is home to over 70 species of water birds including many migratory birds. But as the city is expanding its concrete jungle orbit, the variety has of birds visiting this lake early morning has reduced but the numbers are fair enough to make a visit.

Lifestyle Habitat, one of the most spectacular projects in Bangalore, modeled after the Malaysian Petronas Towers, graces the background of this scenic space. This is supposedly to be one of the costliest apartments in the city.

Since, I had carried my 18-135mm lens only, I was not able to dabble much to take pictures of birds with impeccable clarity. The area encompassing the lake is like a modest jungle, though not a dense one, and it offers one the freedom to go around anywhere. I was able to capture some flowers that had grown in the wild, and not in well manicured gardens.

I have learnt it over the years that, the driving impulse to nature photography is to catch life in its most natural, virgin and raw format. Now if you want to capture those split second moments of birds and animals in the nature, there is one ingredient that is needed in handsome amounts. And that's nothing but patience, methinks.

Die hard photographers will stand for hours in cold or in the sun, enduring insect bites for the chance to photograph something that has already taken shape in their mind, but has to be framed on the camera film. Trust me, it's altogether some form of inexplicable joy that you get, once you take a shot in which the pelican is just about to collect its feed within the blink of an eye. Check a picture taken by my friend, Sam. (same person as above behind his lenses, who waits for 20 minutes or so, balancing the tripod for a single shot.)

Seeing my friend, I wanted to put my patience on test, and my final output is the snap below. It took me close to ten minutes to take this single exposure because I wanted the fly to rest and offer me a lifelike pose.

Soon time passed by and it was 8:30AM and the sun rays started painting the day through the fragile clouds. Traffic gnarls were audible and we realized that it was time to pack up.

Check out some interesting articles about Hebbal Lake:

1. Hebbal lake: whose space?

2. Lake policy misguided, says forest department.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-09-08T08:33:00.003+05:30

The Reluctant Fundamentalist...

"Excuse me, sir, but may I be of assistance? Ah, I see I have alarmed you. Do not be frightened by my beard: I am a lover of America. I noticed that you were looking for something; more than looking, in fact you seemed to be on a mission, and since I am both a native of this city and a speaker of your language, I thought I might offer you my services as a bridge."

This is how the story starts at a café table in Lahore where a bearded Pakistani man is talking to an American stranger. The dusk has set in and slowly as the camaraderie builds, the bearded man unravels the tale that has brought them to this fateful meeting.

Time goes back to four and half years ago, when the now bearded Pakistani, Changez was offered an admit along with scholarship to the Princeton University for his education. In 2001, as he explains, he tells that he was hardly a radical. Being the smartest chap in his graduating class at Princeton, he is snapped by 'Underwood Samson', an elite firm that specializes in the valuation of companies. He thrives on the energy of fast and competitive life of New York living the American dream. He is accelerating in his career in the elite Manhattan society, rubbing shoulders with some of the best talent in his area of expertise.

But things take an unexpected turn after one of the bloodiest attack ever in human history, the 9/11 attack rocks the shores of the US. And from then on, we begin to see how Changez, begins to turn his back on America, even though this was the land that offered him all he wanted in life. He is non-supportive of the policies and the actions of the US government, which inflicted injustices on the world, despite his earning a lucrative American salary, and his infatuation for an American woman, Erica. A 'Yes-No' situation suffocates him.

"No country inflicts death so readily upon the inhabitants of other countries, frightens so many people so far away, as America," says Changez at one point while talking to the stranger.

On the day of the 9/11 attacks, Changez was in Manila on a business visit and on his return to the US he is treated by the immigration staff as a suspect just because of his identity. He is marked for a life of American success and affluence, he drinks, he sleeps with his American girl friend without any religious qualms but few things just choke him. His Muslim identity, in the wake of the 9/11, begins to bother him although from a different perspective.

His job life continues but his doubts multiply. Soon he realizes that in his Manhattan life, something less visible or unclear is attacking him internally. In the constant strive to realize a financial future, he is not spared for the critical personal and political issues that affect one's emotional presence. That's how business is, where one's final output on the plate counts and not the price of one's emotions. But human expressions, beliefs, opinions and views explode beyond a particular threshold and so was Changez's.

Did he sacrifice his identity in pursuit of status? Changez has already begun to ask himself these questions when he sees the twin towers fall, a mighty attack on the American pride. Many events in the surrounding world further alienate Changez's interest in work: the tensions escalating between India and Pakistan, and the United States caught up in displays of patriotism following the attack, etc. The turning point in Changez's life occurs in Valparaiso, Chile where he has gone to evaluate an old publishing company targeted for a takeover. Over lunch, the publisher tells him the story of Janissaries of the Ottoman empire, who were captured Christian boys trained to fight against their own people.

Changez feels..."I was a modern-day Janissary, a servant of the American empire at a time when it was invading a country with a kinship to mine..." and finally takes a conscientious decision and returns to Lahore.

Hamid, who himself attended Princeton and worked in corporate America, aptly captures the ups and downs, the triumphs and the traumas of Manhattan life through the lenses of Changez. I would consider this as a failed love story between a Pakistani and the American Dream, though many of the readers would have expected a tone of religion and faith from the title of the book. But there is barely any mention of it. To me it was a story about confusion, self-abnegation, regret and malice, all these assuming flagitious shades post 9/11 attacks period.

Though the author has made many generalizations about the US but what I felt was, as the plot develops, Chengez is trying to communicate his displeasure at being branded a fundamentalist, which he is not. His personal world and his views never had a tinge of fundamentalism, but he is looked upon as one just because of his place of origin, his blood and his roots. I also think that the ending was a bit hurried, because I had read somewhere that Hamid actually wrote a 1000 page manuscript which finally boiled down to a 184 page publication for this book. The plot could have taken a much better contour.

'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' was an easy read, thoroughly gripping. This is Hamid's second book and he spent close to seven years banging his head to give the final framework to his plot. The plot is a potpourri of fiction, history and polemics and is dotted with examples of great writing and once such piece is as below.

"Perhaps we currently lack wealth, power or even sporting glory—the occasional brilliance of our temperamental cricket team notwithstanding—commensurate with our status as the world’s sixth most populous country, we Pakistanis take an inordinate pride in our food. Here in Old Anarkali, that pride is visible in the purity of the fare on offer; not one of these worthy restaurants would consider placing a western dish on his menu."

I enjoyed reading this book and hope anyone who reads it likes it too. Just a question, I found the name Changez to sound a bit Frenchish, or is it my bad to think that way?

This book, 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' was short listed Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2007.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-09-02T09:14:00.004+05:30

The Cream of the Crap...

To me, cartoonist Matt Diffee has a splendiferous sense of humor and keeps a regular tab on things happening in the outside world. This chap has spent a greater part of his youth in Texas, before moving to the busy life at Manhattan.

Moving to New York after winning the famed famed New Yorker's cartoon contest eight years ago, today he is one of the most popular cartoonists for this magazine (New Yorker) as well as the e-zine.
Any creative end product requires oodles of enthusiasm, imagination and talent; there is no doubt about that. Cartooning falls in that bracket, but is the road that easy as it seems. I mean it's as challenging an occupation like any other, with greater probabilities for rejection and failure. You can trade the word, 'occupation' for 'passion', sounds lot better that way.

A bit of digression here. To make it clear the difference between 'occupation' and 'passion' in real life. Frankly speaking the former churns out a pay cheque at the end of the month. While the later keeps the flame of one's passion burning, this may or may not bring any monetary benefit. I bet lucky is one who gets a drink that has the perfect combination of 'occupation' and 'passion'.

Most people are unable to earn money from their passion. Most people are unable to devote time to their passion. Come to think of it, a majority of people don't even know what they are good at. They work because they have to, not because they want to.

An insightful post on this by Deepti, at Desicritics here.

Now back on track again. Keep you ears open for criticism too , of course of all flavors. Diffee feels that that nearly 90% of any cartoonist's work is rejected. But for this gifted individual, even disapprovals were a blessing in disguise. He happily collated all his ignored works to publish a book, The Rejection Collection: The Cream of the Crap.

"Now proudly out in its second volume, It was an idea I had after gathering a pile of my rejected cartoons that I sort of still liked. New Yorker cartoons are famous, but hardly anyone knows the cartoonists. So a big part of the book, for me, is to share these personalities and the way they think and the way they work."

Now this reminds me of a very important lesson that I learnt during a photography course by renowned photographer, Anand Saran. He told me, never ever delete or discard any of the photographs, even though it doesn’t touch or appeal to others when someone sees it the first time. Preserve those and may be one day, those snaps would win admirations and appreciations from a different section of viewers. That's again goes on to say, to each it's own.

Visit Diffee's collection of cartoons here . Also an interesting interview in which he speaks his heart candidly.

Keep reading and remain connected.

Don't get confused with the title of the post, it's the book by Diffee and he owns the rights for it.

2008-08-26T08:26:00.006+05:30

Worldwide Photo Walk...

Last Saturday morning, offered a perfect weather for going out and capturing few moments of Bangalore city through the camera clicks. I along with few other shutterbugs made full use of this opportunity as we participated in the Bangalore leg of the Worldwide Photo Walk. The Photo Walk was held to mark the release of 'Lightroom', a photography software programme developed by Adobe. Bangalore was the only city in India where this was talking place, apart from the other 192 cities across the world.

This Bangalore leg of the event was managed by Mahesh Shantaram, an independent documentary photographer and artist based in Bangalore.

There was no planned agenda for the walk and it was quite informal. We all started the event at around 7:30 A.M. from Mayo Hall, one of the prominent landmarks in Bangalore. Then our steps clip-clopped on the Residency Road. On our journey we were free to capture anything and everything in our camera lenses.

I was in a mood to make some bio-scopic compositions, even though I was walking down a road heavily masked with glitz shopping malls. Bangalore's old memories are fading very fast, both in the physical environment and in the social atmosphere. That's a logical outcome of economic growth, so better capture those in pictures before they are reduced to dust.

Just a decade ago, anyone could walk down the narrow alleyways and sip a cup of coffee or tea for one rupee or so. But today rusted locks adorn the entrance doors of these neighborhood tea/coffee houses. The once sleepy get together place has given way to a cosmopolitan shopping juggernaut.

Something definitely is lost, for few it's for the better while for the rest, it's for the worse. The city's populace is no longer nostalgic about the remnants and with an urge to modernize fast, the Government and the builders have gutted the city's very soul.

Bangalore and traffic jams are synonymous. Just that the intensity of the blockage varies with the time period of the day. Even though the day had just started, there were long queues of two-wheelers parked near the road.

Construction sites are a common sight but what really adheres to one's vision is the vibrant life visible on the streets. Like this one, a cobbler mending and polishing shoes, sitting on a tiled pathway by the side of the road, enjoying the cacophony of the traffic in front of him.

Today the city that is bursting at the seams is home to people from so many different strata of life, each seemingly a different world of its own. Some enjoy food in the elegant and refined restaurants that have mushroomed in the cities and some are happy with the food that a make-shift stall owner provides.

Who cares as long as its food?

This way the walk continued and many eyes in the traffic were settled on me and few of my fellow shutterbugs. Since there were few foreigners in our group, the autowallas thought that we were tourists, exploring the city over the weekend and approached us with invites to take us on a paid tour of the city. It was around 11 A.M. that we finally decided to put an end to the walk. All of us gathered in the Mocha restaurant where many had late breakfast amidst passionate discussions about the snaps that each had taken.

All in all a refreshing way to spend four hours of a weekend, walking down the narrow streets and capturing life in pictures. By the way, were these snaps, Ok?

You can check the photos taken by all the participants in the event here.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-08-25T08:42:00.004+05:30

A Thought...

For some, its pain.
For some, its pride.
For some, its solemn dignity.
A simple knot
But a complex entangle.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-08-22T08:41:00.004+05:30

Dollar Bahu...

Today the world has changed a lot for desis and Indians in particular. With the declining lustre of dollar in the face of the global economy and business, the US tag or badge doesn't carry as much scintillation as it used to earlier. No doubt, the value is still there, but with the Asian economy offering if not same but similar opportunities, these days the US trump card, is not ranked as it was earlier.

But there were days, when someone settled in the dollar land was looked upon with awe. Now mix, the power of dollar, a mother-in-law, a daughter-in-law, a humble middle class family and other simple ingredients, a plot can be built and that’s what Sudha Murthy did. A couple of years back, she wrote a book, titled 'Dollar Sose' in Kannada and it went on to become a textbook for degree courses in Mysore University, a TV programme on Zee, and was later translated to English, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil and few other Indian languages.

The English version is named 'Dollar Bahu'. This novel webs on the aspirations, dreams and struggles of traditional middle class Indian families. The crux of the story line rests on the promise of plenty that the US dollar holds for middle class Indian families and the price that people pay for a life in the US. The +ve and the –ve points, and the author has reflected all these aspects through the Gauramma, a lady old enough to be a grandma. She is torn between her roots in Bangalore and the life in the US led by her son Chandru and daughter-in-law, Jamuna.

"Lovers are separated, friends become strangers, and the spell of the dollar has the power to disrupt the harmony in the middle class families left back home."

But then, Gauramma often feels sheepish because it was she who had stood like a wall supporting her son to move to the 'promised land', by cheating employers. Finally the son gets a green card, sacrificing his regular once in a year visits to his hometown. The green card, though not green in color brings more greenery in Gauramma's life. Improvement in societal status ladder because of owner of few hundred dollars, more salability in the marriage market for Chandru because of the 'Green Card' factor, and better life style in a two floored house compared to their previous life in a two room house are important milestones in Gauramma's life.

But once she lands in the land of honey and milk (that's how the author mentions the US, or is it the outcome of translation from the original version), she realizes that 'All that glitters is not gold'. Apart from the skewed perceptions she had about the material life in the US, she is more dumb stricken with the social and the fast track life abroad. Priests imported from India on a five-year visa perform rituals in spic and span temples. But this doesn't offer Gauramma the deeply religious feeling that she used to get after returning from her neighborhood temple in Bangalore.

Coming from a middle class society, in which relationships are not appreciated and respected, she is thunderstruck to realize that in the dollar land, every knot of familial bonding is measured. The initial alchemy between Gauramma and the dollar daughter-in-law (Bahu) slowly starts to ebb.

"Anyone can help in the form of money. But one should not forget those who help with their physical presence and their very real care. Anyone can earn money. But treasures like love and trust cannot be bought."

Gradually Gauramma realizes her nuttiness and her despicable obsession for the dollar that had raised pillars of comparison among her family members. She understands her folly of constantly nagging Vinuta, her Indian based daughter-in-law married to another son of hers, Girish. A stay in the land of dollars for about a year, educates Gauramma about the realities of US life led by Indians there: the callousness, the selfish goals, the hunger for prosperity and status, the crave for green card, etc leaving them very little time for family. She returns disenchanted and corrected, seeing in a new light the sincerity of her family left in India The conversion factor of 40 loses its lustre, and makes way for contentment with the rupee.

The book is written in Sudha Murthy's usual self-righteous style, in a simple and coherent way. I completed the book in 2 sittings straight, but it was not like one of those unputdownable books but is worth a one-time breeze reading. I liked the book because someone has candidly stated a topic that many want to express but that has never oozed out of the societal cauldron.

Now this is a song dedication to Gauramma from RC for recognizing what is what and this is not that. See even I am humming something lyrical.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-08-18T10:11:00.005+05:30

Weekend Colors...

Somewhere in one hidden part of Fraser Town is an ordinary place, by the side of the railway track called Pottery Town. Town is too big a word for it, as all it comprises of is a street that is home to around 35 potter families, who have been dabbling with their masterful hands for over 30 years now. This weekend, on a cloudy Sunday morning, I was there with the hope to get some nice shots and interact with the artisans. But, it was my bad luck that there was not much action in this island of creativity because Ganesh Puja is coming soon and all the craftsmen were busy for the regular Puja business. In a nutshell it was a dull day both in terms of the weather and the activity on the shop floor.

Still I managed to take some shots and got a confirmation from the artisans that I can visit them after about a month from now, when there would be lot of action. Action in form of the mixing clay, using the potter's wheel, mixing colors for the painting, baking the products in the kiln, etc. All these have to be done before 10A.M. by when the sun becomes harsh, as it has its own negative effects on the final end result.

I am waiting for that. Till then, if you like these pics, feel free to comment on areas I need to improve.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-08-15T16:45:00.006+05:30

Independence Day...

The nation turned, 62 since it attained its independence in 1947.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-08-13T15:43:00.005+05:30

Dance like this...

Dance is one of the simplest forms of communication and expression. Damn....or I shall replace, 'the simplest' for 'the most difficult'. Don't you often feel that words sometimes hide deeper truths that only the body can guess at, but when it comes to dance, it just flows like fluid? Errors, no errors, perfect step, in-correct step, nothing really matters, all that weighs is that it provides some kind of indescribable pleasure sans all inhibitions.

People of all ages dance in discos, pubs, parties, etc giving free expression to their will. Now try this, someone invites you to a dance floor and asks you to shake your hips, (hey unlike Shakira though, as 'Hips don't lie'). No no, I am exaggerating here. All I meant to say was that, you were invited to do, a step here and a step there. Sometimes we acknowledge to such requests without any second thoughts, but sometimes we do hesitate.

Ask a kid, the same, most of the time, the response would be hey-i-was-waiting for that. Dance can include a preset symbolic vocabulary, such as ballet, or it can resort to symbolic gestures, or common signals, as in the case of pantomime, where the body speaks wordlessly. But all these require lots and lots of practice. Now think of something simple by which every human being has the ability to express her/him self through some movement. You get me, right, it's the bindaas type, the last time you did in your graduate school dorm.

Bend, stretch, jump, and gyrate your body. That's exactly what Matt Harding, did with some peachy music playing in the background, dancing in different locations in India, Kuwait, Bhutan, Tonga, Timbuktu and the Nellis Airspace in Nevada, where he performs his act in zero gravity for his road to global fame. Matt didn't follow any steps and rules that are generally conformed to, in any of the dance forms. For him it was simple, a bit of arm-swinging, and then a pinch of butt-shaking, mild spot hopping would sound good for the second bit. Then finally an elementary knee-pumping. Mix these three movements and even though it may appear zany, but these can trigger an endless array of let-me-do-it feelings in any individual.

You are at your work station or in the kitchen or in your reading room or in the bathroom, didn’t you feel, let me try it once. I guess, that was because, KISS (Keep It Simple and Smart) principle was the crux of the video.

Matt Harding, a 31 year old chap today, grew up in Westport, Conn., thought pretty early that college education was not his cup of tea. Having ditched college, he got himself employed in a video game store, as a designer of video games. But above all this, he preferred to travel, from anywhere to everywhere. So now you get the link, how come so many panoramas from across the globe in his video. 14 months in the making, 42 countries, and a cast of thousands. Brilliant. Matt's site is here.

Now this is a bit of insider info, Matt's girl friend, Melissa Nixon, who works for Google is also related to the video above in some way. The song in the video is sung in Bengali by Palbasha Siddique, a 17-year-old native of Bangladesh now living in Minneapolis. It was Melissa Nixon who had discovered Siddique on YouTube. The song is based on a poem by Rabindranath Tagore, a Nobel laureate (there is a desi touch in everything.) and the music which is both resilient and spirited is by Gary Schyman, a friend of Matt. As music reverberated in my mind, I got a feeling of the tunes that are played just before the flight is about to land. Don't you feel so? More so felt as though my flight was about to land at Schiphol Airport after hovering over the tulip gardens.

Now you if I jot down the fine points from all these, I have 3 important take-aways.

Follow KISS principle.
Internet is the new blood corpuscles of our lives.
Follow one's own heart and deep dive into something that one is passionate about.

But right now, my bums, my legs, my hands and all my muscles are in a mood to jump, and dance, just as you see in this video.

Do I sound like a nutcase or have I gone cranky?

Keep reading and remain connected.

For the title of the post, we all know that "Hips Don't Lie" is a famous song based in a Salsa and Cumbia mix and fused with reggaeton beat performed by Colombian singer Shakira and Haitian rapper Wyclef Jean. The song is a remake of Jean's 2004 song 'Dance Like This'.

2008-08-06T09:14:00.004+05:30

If You Are Afraid of Heights...

I picked a book, saw the cover and hoped that I would get something special to read. After having read this haunting novel, 'If You Are Afraid of Heights', I feel that this is a book that defies categorization. It expresses tales that are neither too concrete to be real, nor too fanciful to be surreal. The plots float somewhere between fantasy and reality.

Sounds a bit confusing, but that's the hallmark of Raj Kamal Jha, a Mechanical engineer from IIT Kharagpur, who didn’t dabble with the complex equations of thermodynamics and theory of machines after his graduation. Instead he applied for a program in the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of Southern California where he received his M.A. in 1990. Since then his literary journey has crossed many stations.

'If You Are Afraid of Heights' is a book of layered visual panoramas, non-geometric as it builds up, threaded using simple language. There are three different tales which are cemented using recurrent images of doll(s), red dress, a white and blue umbrella, Park Street, man with a crow, Paradise Park, trams, show windows, a crying child at night, overflowing canal, unexpected rain, and so on.

The novel starts on an assuring note, the promise of a flight of fantasy riding a crow and the story of a couple introduced to one another through an unexpected tram accident. This is the incomplete story of Rima and Amir. Amir is a middle-class letter writer, and a part-time teacher who lives in a tiny dilapidated house with few amenities. Rima is the only occupant of a mysterious limitless apartment block in Paradise Park that seems to have suddenly come up in the open ground. It is to this place that she brings Amir after the accident and offers all the facilities including free medication, for him to recoup. After Amir fully recovers, Rima comes to live with Amir and be a part of his life and his lifestyle. Life goes on and one dark night, Rima suddenly abandons, Amir's world because she is unable to cope with the painful cries of an unseen child.

The crying child is constant variable to all three narratives.

The second part centers around a reporter, Mala who travels to a small town to investigate the gruesome rape and murder of an eleven-twelve-year-old girl. The flow of the plot is at its best in this segment, and paints the colors of reportage in desi-land, unlike reporting from NYSE sitting in chic offices. The portrayal of a reporter meandering through mud in knee-deep rain-watered streets, talking to an old man who performed the postmortem of the girl, collecting whatever facts that were possible is nifty. Flawless imagery. The end goal is to crack the mystery behind the death of the girl. Whodunit. In this segment again, the motifs, and the crying sounds of the child recur and these disturb Mala during her overnight trip on a rainy day. In a subtle way, Mala's somewhat troubled childhood starts to replay. I think, in the garb of the story of the abuse of a child, the author is trying to explore the other kinds of violence.

"It is very easy to tackle physical violence — the bruises are visible, the laws are in place, the next door neighbors can hear. What is more fascinating to me is the violence you can get away with — psychological violence. No court will convict someone who says 'there are no bruises, but he made me feel as if I was broken into a thousand pieces'."

The final section returns to the city where a particular neighborhood that has witnessed a series of unconnected suicides by men, women, boys, girls, old, and young. Lugubriousness is in the air. A young schoolgirl, who lives in the same colony, is worried that her parents might soon kill themselves. She discloses about all her fears and dark apprehensions to a friend, who promises to follow her father and mother to make sure that they are safe. This part of the narration touches one aspect in detail that I liked, apart from the plot progression. And you guessed it right, if that was photography.

Each of the three segments has its own prologue which reads like film scripts. The writing is so raw and fascinating that with minimal effort the author creates the backdrop for his plot. The atmosphere is one of those in which every desi can smell the day-to-day life, of crowds, of traffic, of kids playing cricket in the streets, of power failures, of plush high-rise apartments, of gutters and canals overflowing in rainy season, etc. All these and many more minute details of settings and surroundings eclipse the theme. The verbal visuality is magical.

The book ends with the following lines, "Look at the picture on the cover, there’s a child, a girl in red dress; there's a bird, a crow in a blue white sky. And then there are a few things you cannot see.". This is exactly what the cover page of the book shows.

But did you check that, see carefully before you dive reading it.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-07-31T06:56:00.002+05:30

Get a life...

When I saw the book, 'Get a Life' at a bookstore, the name itself admonished me, whether to buy a copy, because the title sounded like one of the regular self help books. But then when my eyes read the author as Nadine Gordimer, I thought let me give it a try. This was my first read of any work by Nadine Gordimer. I liked the book because contemporary issues formed the framework of the plot, the author modishly jogged towards a wavering climax. No answers are provided and I felt the author has been seeking different interpretations to the various webs we encounter in our lives. In short a provocative book throwing questions at each layer.

The central character, Paul is the child of well-to-do white South Africans, who is forced into a temporary state of in-action and isolation as he is diagnosed of suffering from thyroid cancer. The medical treatment that he undergoes leaves him radioactive, thus being a source of danger to others for some weeks. Sensing the harmful effects of the radioactive radiations, he leaves his wife and only child to return to his childhood family home. His parents, both of whom are nearing retirement, along with a care taker are more than happy to care for their child who is now a 35 year old man. Even though 35, so what. For any parents, their child is always a child, and age is just a number.

This is a novel of inner lives, described emotions not conveyed ones, about human relationships, etc. It's an intricate matrix in which each of the characters is interacting with one's own self.

Paul, an ecologist is fighting for environmental concerns to save the world on one side. On the other side of the fence is Berenice, his wife who works in an advertising agency that facilitates few business firms’ colossal plans for development in the form of constructing highways and resorts, destroying her husband’s beloved wilderness. At a personal level, they share a perfect relationship, make love, have a kid, go out for dinners, and manage the responsibilities at home well but there is contradiction between the values of their work.

How do they manage this?

Paul's mother, Lyndsay, is also a successful professional in the field of law and justice. As a mother, she leaves no stone un-turned when it comes to taking care of her son who has acquired the status of a leper. As the plot develops, she unfolds her past of her heydays, about 15 years ago. A time when she had a four-year affair with a fellow lawyer out of mere desire for gratification. A gross mistake, a lie, and the irreparable damage, are today dark patches of the past for Lyndsay. But some clouds are heavy and don’t get carried away whatsoever. The end result, guilt suffocates Lyndsay.

As the story gains momentum, there is an air of positivity. Paul recovers fast from the radioactive treatment and by the time he is fully cured, both families have changed. Later his parents go to Mexico to fulfill the archaeological vocation Adrian, Paul's dad had sacrificed to support his family. The outcome of this trip is the final surprise in this highly unusual exploration of passionate individual existences.

I found that Gordimer's style is to use less but powerful words. But few sentences were too elliptical and brumous for me to comprehend. Either that's the author bizarre way of writing or my pea sized head didn’t get those Einsteinish format of sentence construction.

Parents are responsible for bringing into the world their progeniture whether deliberately or carelessly and theirs is an unwritten covenant that the life of the child, and by descent the child's child, is to be valued above that of the original progenitors.

But then there are pages, where one would think twice why the author wrote it as fluid prose, though it tastes as good as poetry.

'Where the company of jacaranda fronds finger the same breeze that brushed the boy's soft cheek'.

A slim volume, but the author's literary epithelial ducts convey many things which people won’t like to hear or things people like to share but somehow keep those suppressed.

Hey 'Get a Life'. Nah nah am not giving gyan, here just saying, read the book if that strikes your interest.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-07-23T15:07:00.009+05:30

Which is this city?...

Mosaic of some pics, that I had taken while prowling in the city.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-07-22T16:48:00.004+05:30

Some random moods...

R for Relax:

S for Silence:

T for Twosome:

Mood when took these pictures, dullish, gloomy. The cloudy weather and unadulterated early morning did the rest. Don't know if my fingers orchestrated over the shutter buttons as I wanted. That part you decide?

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-07-11T07:19:00.006+05:30

Free-dom/doom of Speech....

The 4th of July is celebrated every year as the Independence Day in the US. This day is marked by celebrations, usual patriotism and fanfare and a jovial mood is there in the air. But this year when President Bush was offering a speech marking 232 years since the adoption of the declaration of independence at Thomas Jefferson's famous home, Monticello, not everyone was in a festive mood. It was the annual naturalization ceremony, in which Bush welcomed seventy-six men and women from 30 countries to the land of opportunities. He was interrupted several times by protesters.

"War criminal!" one protester repeatedly yelled.

"He has brought fascism to this shore," another man yelled.

The President did not seem to be in any mood to acknowledge these protesters. He mentioned neither the war in Iraq nor the battle against terrorism in his entire speech, other than to say that "we pay tribute to the brave men and women who wear the uniform." At one point the president told, "To my fellow citizens-to-be, we believe in free speech in the United States of America."

As one of the protesters screeched, she was escorted out by Secret Service members. But the question is why was that done ? Just a couple of minutes back, President Bush, had told that the nation believes in free speech. Did the protesters express something really derogatory in front of the crowd? The answer to this may be a 'Yes' or a 'No'.

If 'Yes', then

I don't understand what was so disparaging about the remark. President Bush, is definitely intelligent enough to understand what 'freedom of speech' means. And that criticism in any format, unless it is violent and is marked by physical assault or attack falls within the ambit of freedom of speech.

Else if 'No', then

The message that President Bush sends is that those at the helm of power and politics, be it politicians or policemen, have a very low threshold of tolerance for criticism. They will hit back with their own ways or get one arrested.

End of argument.

See there are lot of similarities between programming and politics :). Just that active criticism makes one a better programmer but the same act puts an adhesive label on one's mouth in the later domain. Now the way Bush handled the situation is nothing unique to his land, the same demeanor can be seen world over by all those in seats of power and authority.

Now I guess each one of us in India would have seen the Sprite cool drink AD which had a catchy punchline, 'dikhawe pe na jao, apni akal lagao'. Don't you feel with a bit of visual massaging, the Youtube video can fit into this bracket.

How? someone-talks-of-free-speech-and-then-next-moment-a-person-is-arrested. Need I say more, I know you got it. Copyrights for this idea is RC's, well can give the same to President Bush as he is the central character in the video ;). And and and my desi AD geniuses, who recently rocked at the Cannes Lions 2008 winning 23 lions, are you listening too. Can we knit a sooper cool AD out of this ?

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-07-08T07:06:00.012+05:30

Lucknow 76...

Few months back, Dr.BD had made a post on Lucknow, depicting few panoramas of the city sitting in a roof top restaurant relishing gorgeous food.

But why did this topic come into picture, the connecting chord is 'Lucknow', a city that I have never visited but have read about it and also heard lots about from my room-mate who graduated from IIM Lucknow. Last weekend, I was at Alliance Francaise de Bangalore, to watch a play titled 'Lucknow 76'.

The plot of the play was based on politics and history, shifting between two time frames of 1876 and 1976 looking at Lucknow city through the eyes of the common man. 1876 was a milestone for the Britishers, as that was the year, when Queen Victoria took over the command from the East India Company. 1976 was also significant in history because during that time, the once proud democracy, India was under the clutches of tin pot dictator, Indira Gandhi who had declared a state of Emergency as the Prime Minister of the nation.

So that reasons out for the numeral '76' in the title of the play.

But then why 'Lucknow' and why not 'Delhi' or 'Bombay' or 'Calcutta' or 'Madras' or 'Bangalore'. Because the director and playwright of the play, Abhishek Majumdar (AM) had spent some part of his childhood in this city. During AM's visits to Lucknow, his grand uncle, a scholar of history and geology had inundated his mind with tales and chronicles about the city from an old bungalow.

Now back to the play and the players on the stage.

The stage was a raised platform, bare minimal in terms of setting. A collage carpet dressed the entire floor. A ziz-zag geometrically-shaped stool, an artistically designed bench on one corner and few cushions were all the props used during the various scenes.

The play began with the entire cast of actors on stage firing words arbitrarily, and this state of confusion continued until two characters working in a press chisel in. Soon an old madam editor, of the press enters and they discuss about the sabotage of press and free speech during the 1976 emergency.

The sequence of the scenes in the plot follows a pattern like they do in these aerobic classes, one step back and then one step front. So one scene from 1876 and then one from 1976 and the flow continues. You get me right.

A greater part of the play covered, the 1876 era and it was masterly role-played. The three lead actors for this part were a Muslim revolutionary, a Brahmin Compounder and a brown British madam. Now how can a British madam be brown, that's because her father, a Brit and a general on duty in India had married an Indian woman. As the play rewinds to Victorian India, fervent and fiery debates rise about nation and ruler royalty neatly animated by the revolutionary and the Compounder. Questions are tossed about one's dedication to one's own motherland, supporting indigenous medicines against propagating Brit medical practices for general welfare, the language in which Vande Mataram was written and likewise. Though the two characters share views that are completely opposite, the Muslim revolutionary considering the very presence of Britishers in their own land a bane, the Hindu Compounder considering it a boon but yet they are the best of friends. These two characters expressed their school of views with downrightness.

The brown British lady's part who wants to study India through the eyes of the common man was also commendable. She seeks the help of the Muslim revolutionary to take her on tours to the local bazaars, to the river bed of Gomti, to the sectors where the natives of Lucknow live, and where the street dogs, the cattle and innumerable flies add to the bustle. She is also introduced to local food which can bring water to any person's mouth think about the Dum Biryani, Sheermal, Zamin Doz, Kakri Kebab, Shami Kebab, etc. During one of their saunters, the Muslim revolutionary cracks a joke to the brown Madam, the dialogue piece of which goes like this: 'Madam, you know what, in Lucknow we have more varieties of kebabs than you have Britishers in that small island.'

Few of the dialogues were engaging and just got glued to my mind. 'In a war, its beliefs that fight, not people.' You see the contemporary relevance, it was then, and it is the same, even today and I don't know what will happen in future.

The 1976 half of the play was more of a disjointed and garbled commentary. The unprovoked detention of innocent people, the abuse and torture of detainees in jails, the forced vasectomy of thousands of men under the infamous family planning initiative, the cutting down of electricity supply to publishing houses and the censorship on press were portrayed tactfully. The highlight of the 1976 era depiction was the naxal interaction which was arresting in terms of energizing acting and dialogue delivery. This bit was in Bengali which I feel quite a few in the audience could not understand.

The scenes were as sensitive as was the dark period but to add some easiness in the air, subtle and clever jokes were cracked like 'it's difficult to understand the philosophy of philosophy' (pun on Indira Gandhi's intent for the Emergency) and about the 'Mango tree on the Moon'. (Can someone guess what was actually pointed at here, for the second bit, though I have my own version but not sure if it fits perfectly to the context?)

The lighting was dim for most of the time, mostly because events showcased on stage were from pages of history. A quiet whiskered man, sitting on one corner, strumming his guitar and lending his voice to few evocative songs in Punjabi and Hindi in his countrified voice made the audience travel through the lanes of Lucknow both in 1876 and 1976. The music was a one-man-show, full credits to this gentleman.

Though I am not a connoisseur in the theatrical aspects of sound, lighting, music but still arrangements on the whole for 'Lucknow 76', appealed to me. The only glitch that I could notice, many in the audience had was that many crucial parts of the play were enacted in languages that was not deciphered by all (around 75% of the play was in English and the rest 25% in Malayalam, Hindu, Bengali, Tamil and Kannada).

There were around 12 performers for this play, (sorry, I don't remember their names, and I even lost the play's brochure) and each of them performed splendidly. This play was supported by the Black Coffee Productions in aid of the Concern India Foundation. The director Abhishek is an engineering graduate from NIT Trichy, one of the best technical institutes in India and then an MBA from Delhi University, after which he entered into his professional life in Bangalore. But his heart was in theater, Abhishek won the Charles Wallace Fellowship and went to do a course at the London International School of Performing Arts for a year in 2006. A couple of months back he was awarded the Metro Plus Playwright Award by 'The Hindu'. Very soon he is heading to the UK again armed with an Inlaks scholarship.

Bon voyage and wish you all the best.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-07-01T07:16:00.008+05:30

Connexions...

Now everyone knows that, with the kind of revolution and global tie-ups happening in the telecom domain in India today, more Indians than citizens of any other nation would be signing up for mobile telephone services each month. This to me is a symbolic milestone in India’s rapid catch-up with other growing economies in the world.

I am not going to touch that bit, but what interests me more are the kind of changes in our social life that the mobile revolution has introduced. Let's keep the economic, business and technological related changes for some other day to discuss.

Long long time back, during the era of tring tring telephony, people had to wait for two and half hours or more to make a call. It would have been a privilege to have conversed over the phone then. More so owning one of those magic boxes at home would have been a matter of pride. I think in this direction because from whatever I have read, I learn that in those bygone days, to dial a number and stumble onto someone else's conversation was a common affair. Consider yourself more fortunate, if at all the call made the correct connection in your first attempt.

A call from Rangoon to Dehradun to one's lady love, would have been marked in bold letters as an achievement in one's curriculum vitae. Yes, I mean it because it had to surpass two major road blocks. One for sure is the connection getting through and other being to be an avant-garde to call and speak to your dulcinea. With an air of conservative, loog kya socchengye and closed-mindedness prevailing in the society, how would the newly married couples or lovebirds have interacted over the phone. May be our grandfathers and grandmothers can reply to this. Shhh....

India probably had the worst telephone penetration rates in the world till the time we entered the era of liberalization around 1991. The most common anecdote, to cite the government's impassiveness to improve India's communications infrastructure is to quote the words of C.M. Stephen who was the Communications Minister under the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984. In reply to a question of regular telephone infrastructure breakdown in India, he told that telephones were a luxury, not a right, and that any Indian who was not satisfied with his/her telephone service could return his phone. From that day till today a lot has changed, and in my view the Government's role in this revolution has always been there but not as much as the private sector telecom companies, who have drafted the new story of connectivity.

Apart from the regular services that I get while I am within the city perimeters, my connectivity is not lost while I am out of town too. When I travel within the different states in India, as soon as I cross the borders of a particular state and enter another one, I immediately get a message on my mobile, 'XYZ Services Welcomes You to 'A' State'. Here 'XYZ' is a service provider and 'A' refers to the state that I have just entered to. Most of the time, our mobile phones connects to its service provider's regular network. Now when my mobile phone is located somewhere not covered by my local carrier's network, I can still avail the facilities by the using services of another provider or a sister arm of the same service provider for connectivity. This is my understanding of what is called 'roaming' on mobile in India. Today this comes at an affordable rate of Rs 1.50 per STD call and Rs 1.00 for local calls.

Mostly, we Indians are a conscientious lot when it comes to spending money on mobile phone talk time. We know which calls can be cut short and which calls can be extended and we do that masterly in our daily lives. Over in India, Ph.D student Carolyn Wei of the University of Washington's department of technical communication has researched the important role mobile phones play in India's Tech city, Bangalore. Not surprisingly, she found that mobile phones play a crucial role in relationships among young people there.

The research was conducted last summer in the fast-growing city of 6.1 million that is experiencing forces of globalization and modernization. Many educated Indian people have moved to Bangalore to work for foreign corporations. The 20 participants in the study were aged from 18 to 30 years, and were fairly typical of young people who have moved to Bangalore for jobs, Wei said. They were financially stable, most had lived in Bangalore for less than two years and most spoke both English and Hindi but none of the local languages. More than half the study participants worked the graveyard shift because they provided technical support for people working during the daytime in North America.

"The people I studied were in this 24/7 environment and they were always on the go," Wei said. Many were involved in long-distance relationships with someone working or studying in another city. The phone provided couples with a "perpetual virtual connection." For people working long hours and commuting in Bangalore's heavy traffic, the mobile phone was even crucial for maintaining relationships with people in the same city.

Now if analyze it, deep down, it's a win-win for both the service providers and the customers. These days, the operating costs are low because the sheer volume of traffic generated by the ever increasing customer base has persuaded many companies to bring down call rates. The end result, invariably everyone, more so the mobile office worker, hopping different cities for business meetings/assignments would like to use a mobile phone for the convenience, add to it the emotional connection, it brings to day-to-day life.

Grandparents from one part of India, (say Delhi) call their grand children based in Bangalore and they carry on their conversations as if they are sitting in the next room. Husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, sons and daughters living away from parents, brothers and sisters living in different cities, for that matter you think of any human relation, and it's a fair bet that the ubiquitous mobile phone network play some part in the exchange of words. To me the 24/7 mobile phone connectivity today can be appropriated as a means of extending traditional sociality between friends, relatives and family members.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-06-25T23:11:00.006+05:30

Google Saree...

Scratch your head a bit and if you can recollect, just before the last cricket World Cup, there was lot of hoopla before the tournament commenced. Sad that the men in blue had an early exit, wrecking all the big dreams and investments many business and advertisement houses had vested in this event.

It was like 'saab paani maain dhool gaya' and I guess even Satya Paul had the same fate. Satya Paul, a leading brand name in India and also worldwide in association with e-Bay had plans for auctioning five exclusive sarees that were sported by Mandira Bedi. Each of these saree was special in the sense that, the theme of cricket underlined each of the design or the pattern.

Satya Paul, was born in Leigha, Muzaffargarh (now in Pakistan) and came to India at the time of partition. For many years, he worked hard with the weavers and wanted to create a global image for this usually 6 yards piece of cloth, known to us as 'saree'. In 1985 he launched the brand, Satya Paul. Later on the business baton was taken effectively by his son Puneet Nanda. Puneet, together with his friends, Jyoti Narula and Sanjay Kapoor later expanded the business.

Satya Paul is a brand that blends contemporary taste, social changes, fashion trends and art perfectly in most of its creations. Like this one which it showcased in a recent fashion show. A sooper cool saree, with Google printed on it. If you see the picture carefully, even the address bar near the shoulder part of the saree, mentions the shopping site of his designer house. Even the algorithms from the search behemoth, Google cannot escape from the charming magic of the saree. Don't you think it would be fantabulous to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful on a saree?

Possible or impossible, you decide?

The fluttering drapes that adorn the body, the mystical smile that accompanies every fold, the dreams and beauty of an Indian lady are better personified in the saree. Isn't it ? Don't get me wrong, that I against those who wear jeans, t-shirts, western formals, salwar kameez, etc. Nah nah, to each its own and I also know for a fact that different circumstances and situations commands one's dressing style/option. Wear what you are most comfortable with, no fcuking worries. Vokay.

I had to go round and round in a merry-go-round to tell you, one point. Its that the saree has its own aristocratic flavor, methinks. Deepa Krishnan, a fellow Desicritic'ian had made a wonderful post on saree sometime back.

To tell the truth, I find the draping of the saree a sensuous pleasure. That final flinging of the pallu over the shoulder, the twisting to look at your back in the mirror, the feel of crepe silk as it goes round the bare midriff - everything contributes to a subtle sensual delight even as you dress for work. The saree allows me to be feminine, to experiment with colours and jewellery, confident that no matter what kind of figure I have, this garment will help me look my best.

Keep reading and remain connected.

(Note: The Google saree pic is taken from Flickr, and the other one from the web.)

2008-06-23T06:44:00.004+05:30

Dear Popples...

Do you have a dream? I guess its human that each one of us dreams. Just that the nature of dream varies from person to person. Someone dreams of making to the top business school in the world, someone dreams of making the next generation application for the internet, someone dreams of starting his/her own firm, someone dreams of buying the best apartment in the town, etc, etc. The central point here is that most of these dreams are centered around personal benefits to an individual, be it social, material, intellectual, etc. It's like playing the game with the me, myself and my world as lynchpins. But there are still people in this self-interested world for whom the driving agents are us, ourselves and our world.

Yes, I am talking about a very respected and elderly person who would be as old as my maa and who dreams altogether in a different perspective, Anouradha Bakshi. Anou’s dream is to save the dreams of others, isn’t it something very special. In the last 10 years hundreds of children have found their dreams coming true because of Anou and her selfless initiative, Project WHY.

Here I am not trying to make a hyperbolic introduction of Anou to impress you, as this is no Oscar award night nor I am canvassing for any election candidate. This is just a brief intro to this simple and forward-looking lady. Anou was voted 'Citizen One 2005' by the India Today group and in the same year received the 'Red and White Silver medal for Social Bravery'. She is the daughter of an Indian Ambassador and has seen many parts of the world. With a Masters degree in French, she was an interpreter to the likes of Indira Gandhi and Jacques Chirac.

From what I know, the inspiration behind Project WHY are the last words of her diplomat father 'Don't lose faith in India'. These uncomplicated words reaffirmed Anou's conviction that, in spite of numerous lapses in our country, still there can be ways to do things better. Improvement may be a mirage, but still reachable. Long periods of introspection, as to how all these endless 'why's' need to be answered, culminated in starting Project WHY in 1998. Anou blogs without fail, penning about each and every little activity that is happening at Project WHY. Dive in here, to get the up to date info and I can bet you that this would open an entirely different world before you.

I have supported Project WHY for a while now, and am proud to be a part of this fraternity. It's just not me, its us as many of my friends have helped me support this movement during times of need. I am just a drop in the ocean of volunteers who give their time and energy for this movement.

When a person, has seen all these and more, scripting a book is quite a spontaneous act. What say? And so did Anou, whose first book, 'Dear Popples' was published in May 2008. I am just going to tickle your curiosity, and leave the rest for you to read.

'Popples', guess even if you searched a dictionary, it's hard to find this word, then how come Anou got this name. Anou has breathed and lived a considerable part of her life, feeling the pulse of 'Popples', an adorable child from the slums of Delhi. Barely a year old, 'Popples' sustained third degree burns and the hospitals ignored him, and let him to die on the streets. Anou fought a rough-and-tumble battle, to bring this soul from the jaws of death. From then on these two individuals became friends for life, with Anou wearing the hat of a godmother and absorbing the pain of the child and his scars. The cicatrices were deep but Anou scribbled numerous letters anticipating that the power of words would one day win over the Popples's physical and the psychological scars.

Each letter is addressed to 'Popples' that ends with a trademark signature, Maam'ji as this was the nickname 'Popples' used for Anou. And so goes the title.

There are definitely more tales to read in this book. Many of those who have read this book have left their comments here at Amazon.com. Jo, has left a poignant review after reading this book.

I don't know how would a person categorize your book. It is well crafted like a fiction, and the narratives of Popples in between makes it a real life account, at times it takes form of an autobiography, and then of a biography - I don't know where it falls, but the story does fall to one's heart. The book is well organized as it is in the form of short letters so it doesn't make a boring read. The short letters full of the warmth of your love for little Utpal is what glues the reader to this book.

On June 28th'08 a small book launch for 'Dear Popples' is being organized at Reliance Time Out, Ambiance Mall, Gurgaon between 11 am and 1 pm. If you are in town, do attend this event and meet Anou. There is no formal invitation and do inform your friends and relatives who are interested, so that they can also join in.

You can order the book here at Indiaplaza or at here at Amazon.com.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-06-19T23:16:00.009+05:30

Manholeonomics...

A couple of days back I was talking to a friend in Mumbai and learnt how eagerly Mumbai'tes wait for the rain. It had rained cats and dogs in Mumbai recently. Everyone knows that the civic problems would surface again in spite of the big talks shared by the local authority's netas. Talks of faux promises abound. So the best people do when its Barso Re Megha Megha Barso Re time, is to keep the umbrellas and rain coats ready. Kids pray to rain God, to get a few extra days off from school. All these happen each year and its kind of ritual.

But this year there is a twist in the tale. Come rainy season, Mumbai is witness to scores of open manholes, and this year, the BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation) is blaming the Chinese dragon for its excruciations.

Though the connecting link seems a bit sapless but definitely there is some spine in the reasoning.

Let's mix a bit of Freakonomics logic and come out with the right questions and underlying connections. The facts that emerge from the cauldron have ample reasoning index. China which is hosting the 2008 Olympic Games is busy constructing massive structures. As a result of this, it is quaffing tons and tons of iron and steel, hence increasing the demand for this resource globally. A natural fallout of this is that organized gangs are now operating in various parts of Mumbai city, that steal the manhole covers. This is simply a case of supply and demand mismatch. Around 1,500 covers have been stolen in the past couple of months, and the price of each stolen manhole is around Rs 5,500 in the grey market.

Now why is Mumbai targeted and not any other city in India? My answer would rest on two levers. The first one is that it's a port city and so transportation to foreign shores is easy. And second one is that probably in Mumbai, the organized gangs are really orchestrated and well connected.

Even if this point as raised by BMC is a bit exaggerated, separating the chaff from the grain is a bit difficult. There is definitely some amount of truth in it. The truth being, the world today has become iron and steel glutton, because of the development that various nations are going through. So to meet the rising demands, taking short cuts are also acceptable.

There are many inauspicious accidents that Mumbai'tes face because of the sudden disappearance of the manholes. During the rainy season, the streets are over flowing with water, the day it rains heavily. And suppose a regular commuter on a particular road is not aware of the sudden disappearance of a manhole, there is no marking to indicate the impending doom as the water is flowing in full force, s/he may face a fatal accident. It's a more serious issue for kids especially.

Also there's a big financial loss for the city authorities in the event of these theft cases. Since most of the manholes are covered with cast-iron covers, it's a bit more costly and has more scrap value than the ductile-iron covers. This is not a one-off case, I even read many tales such as these which are triggered by the global supply demand inconsistencies.

The only positive side that I see in this episode is that, people know when there is water clogging, the concerned authorities won't turn up soon to fix the problem. So the fastest way water can recede smoothly without causing any chokage is to leave the manholes open. Of course all that needs to be done is to have some alert posts or some tripods with red flags as signals to inform the people. But in many cases, it's the Ramu Kaka or the Kishan Bhaiya in his make shift shop and other regular hawkers who extend the heads-up message.

If my words above sound gimcrackery, then just do a Ctrl+A, then press Delete button for whatever you have read so far. My tongue-in-cheek advice is then, let's go for Sawan Barse Tarse Dil kinda experience.

Ahhhhhhhhhh! am getting rainmatic.

Keep reading and remain connected.

(Note: Manhole pic is taken from Flickr. It's taken by noniphon.)

2008-06-15T09:14:00.005+05:30

Happy Father's Day....

This picture was taken by W. Eugene Smith who is from the State of New York, United States of America. This pic was shot at Silver Lake, where in he captures the inexpressible sight of a father teaching his son how to dive. This was shot in the 1950's. Vintage pic, but vivid, speaks volumes with just two characters in the frame and with only two colors to play with.

There is a brilliant collection of pics, here at Slate e-zine to mark, the Father's Day.

Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later... that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could, out of a sense of duty and, perhaps love, adopted a role called Being a Father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life. -- Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities

Wish, that special person as methinks, to a greater extent we owe that person a lot. That person would never ever demand anything in return, he is like that only. So a day to make him feel special, in each one's own way because as it goes to each it's own.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-06-09T22:27:00.008+05:30

Laluji Ban Gaye Blogger...

Flipping through the newspapers or browsing across the news in the web media, you would have learnt how blogging is catching up in India and in the entire world in a big way. Be it Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan or Salman Khan. Do these people really write their blogs, or just that they have some one else who does the job for them. I am really not sure about that but few chaps are frank and candid as Lord Jeffrey Archer who was in India recently to promote his latest page-turner, A Prisoner of Birth. He is even bitten by the blogging bug and when posed a question by a reporter:

Tell us about your blog. Isn't it a big commitment for someone who is tech-challenged?

A friend of mine who runs a blog, who is the chairman of my publishing company, was getting 50,000 people (hits) a month. He said, 'You should do it Jeffrey'. So I did, and last month, 540,000 people hit the blog.

I don't post the blog. I handwrite it, give it to the secretary and she posts it. When I sit down to breakfast, I get a pile of emails from the blog. Twenty-five per cent of them at the moment are from India, but that will probably change when I leave.

The latest that I read in Economic Times is that our good old Laluji is having a duologue with a Mumbai-based media team to start his own blog. His source of inspiration is none other than the Democratic Presidential candidate, Barack Obama's magical spell of views and ideas expressed in his blog. The blog is expected to be put up at Mypopcorn.com and the minister is expected to make 2 posts a week. The topics to be covered are just anything and everything.

My personal feeling is that Laluji's blog site is going to draw lot of readers because of myriad reasons, among which one definitely clings on the humor and wittiness factor.

Laluji's first post was centered on the Gujjar agitation and he blames the Vasundhara Raje Government for mishandling the entire scenario and bringing it to disconsolate stage. In his post he expressed his displeasure at the loss that Indian Railways incurs because of the plotted agitations.

The loss caused to the Indian Railways is yet to be estimated but the damage has been severe. Several trains, both passenger and goods, have been cancelled. It is unfortunate that the Gujjars have vented their anger by disrupting the rail lines, but they do not realize they have dismantled lifelines of the country.

Leave the mis-management or the management part of Laluji when it comes to, ruling the state of Bihar for a long time, which if I am not mistaken is for a period of 15+ years. This in itself is a paradox. One very prominent facet of Laluji's persona that impresses me is his earthy humor and adroitness and cleverness in handling the media and the press.

Mind you, he is father to nine children but when he was questioned by the press about family planning, he gave a befitting reply. His reply was that his large family was a resistance against the emergency that was imposed in India in the late 1970s under the leadership of the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. The Prime Minister had enforced sterilization to control the country's population and so Laluji went ahead to revolt against this and formed a mini-football team. So much so that, he even named his eldest daughter, Misa after a set of harsh code of laws that provided the police a free rein in the late 1970s.

His name may be Lalu (meaning a 'fool') but to me he has the brain of a super computer and within it runs different processes churning out endless solutions for any kind of imaginable problem in the political canvas. Rewind, your memory and you can recall how in 1997 he was oust from the post of chief minister of Bihar for his involvement in a corruption scandal. Overnight he appointed his wife Rabri (name of a sweet dish in North India) Devi, as the next chief minister. That's brilliant by any standards, planning and executing something with the drop of hat. When the press questioned him about the capabilities of Rabri, he replied with firm conviction that she had managed a house and nine children smartly. Hence questioning her political competency and management skills would be an insult to every Indian homemaker.

To me other than the political astuteness that Laluji possesses, his greatest endowment is his ability to understand the minds of his constituency, strike the right chords (ideology rather than governance works, symbolism and not development are keys for political survival, caste and religion are trump cards rather than performance at grass root level) with those that matter when it comes to vote banks, etc. This may sound lacking subtlety and insight but Laluji is a master at it and that's the reason he has managed to turn every political hard knocks into an opportunity.

One of his most talked about histrionics was when Laluji, once publicly announced that he would transform Bihar's roads, and make those as smooth and unflustered as Hema Malini's cheeks. To this, the BJP campaigner late Pramod Mahajan on a visit to Bihar, riposted that far from matching the smoothness of Hema Malini's cheeks, the in competency of Lalu government had turned the roads as spelunked as the cheeks of Om Puri. As far as I remember, neither of the comparable entities in this discussion created any flutter, and it was a political pas de deux between Laluji and Pramod Mahajan.

Laluji may be a rustic politician, in dhoti-kurta and may lack the sophistry, he may be dubbed as 'jungle raj' chief minister but under his direction in the present Government, the amount of reformation and profits that Indian Railways has witnessed is management folklore today. The turnaround in the financial health of the Indian Railways, with the reins in charge of Laluji, has been the subject of major discussion at IIMs and many top business schools round the globe.

So what has Prasad done to the Indian Railways which his predecessors could not? The answer lies in his own down-to-earth attitude and rustic wisdom.

Prasad puts it in his inimitable style: "My mother always told me not to handle a buffalo by its tail, but always catch it by its horns. And I have used that lesson in everything in my life, including the Railways."

Prasad's other management mantra for the Railways has been: "If you do not milk the cow fully, it falls sick," which he is practicing while running the Railways.

Laluji is definitely an enigma, a mystery and there are many people who wish to understand the yokes of his flummoxing and puzzling personality. An official is quoted as saying, "More than 100 missions have sought his curriculum vitae and asked questions about him. They say he is worth studying. Such interest is unheard of for any other minister." Incidentally, Lalu Prasad is the subject of a study by sociologists at Harvard University in the United States.

Now if such an interesting personality joins the blogging bandwagon, am sure there's a lot available to read. I am game to read about Laluji's secret for jhakkas one liners and of course about his countrified comparisons. Laluji, where do you get this armory of wit, do share please.

Keep reading and remain connected.

(Note: Some people spell the word, 'Lalu' as 'Laloo', so it's one and the same.)

2008-06-05T15:58:00.006+05:30

Planet Green...

Just take a moment and think. Is the place in which you and I live green? Is it more green than it was say 6 months back. If YES, how can I improve it further. If NO, there is something happening in the eco-system that is bringing about this metamorphosis. Can this be checked and how am I going to make a difference. Isn't it a simple question.

Check this one, Planet Green. It has gone online and is on-air too. The content it has is entertaining, relevant, and accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds, for a green world, there are no barriers. By representing a broad range of ideas and perspectives, Planet Green is taking an active role in generating conversation and motivating individuals to take action when it comes to improving the environmental status of our planet.

Keep reading and remain connected.

(Note: Both the pics taken on road.)

2008-06-02T10:16:00.003+05:30

Quote of the Day...

The cheerleaders need to be applauded for only in Hyderabad would they have had to hear stuff like, "Arrey dhang se hilao ji, kya pukkat mein aye kya".

-- Pingu aka Rishabh Kaul. Source: Desicritics.

I will post my views on the cheerleaders and the kind of ballyhoo (both +ve and -ve) their presence generated in the recently concluded IPL series. Few points are just squirming in my mind, so let those rest and make way for well-knit sentences.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-05-29T06:18:00.013+05:30

Attrition among new recruits...

The points that I mention here are from what I have seen in the real world corporate dynamics, heard about experiences from friends and few from the learnings and readings from various articles, journals and blogposts. The reasons that I mention below are mostly centered around those who have spent their time and energy in the industry (mostly IT/Tech/Tech Services/Engineering) from a range of one year to say four years after their graduation from an engineering school or a technical institute. Even few of the points apply to those who don a much higher number of years experience hat.

Attrition is a growing concern for almost all the firms across various sectors in different corners of the world but today the pain is felt more in India. This bruise gets highlighted more in an Indian context because as the economy is growing, the engines who are partners in this ride also need to deliver, but because of employee attrition few initiatives are put on the back burner. The HR managers are having a tough time finding a suitable replacement with required experience and ability, to fill up the vacancies created on account of exit of key employees.

Here in my post, I share few of my views as to why employees, especially new joinees leave the firm, a little after the embryonic stage of their job career cycle.

1. Company and personal goals clash: Many of the smart recruits in many firms these days are hired through campus placements in engineering schools during the pre-final year days. Placement talks are like major branding shows and each of the hiring firms tries to outshine others in the fray by attractive presentations in diverse formats. Company goals and visions are put forward to candidates and these tastes like the best recipes to whiz one's career. The message that is sent is: 'With the company's goals, all measures are taken for an employee's personal development also'. I am not denying the fact that there are companies who do orchestrate company's goals and employees' personal goals but the number is less. Come to the work place, the real world is not that rose-cheeked after one understands the underlying factors. This is completely out of phase, of WYWPIWYG assurance (what-you-were-promised-is-what-you-get). In short most of the cases of attrition thrive on the thread that firms place their priorities ahead of employees' goals, without understanding the employees' basic aspirations resulting in friction.

Although their HR depts claim that they have systems which ensure a smooth induction, training and deployment onto projects that isn't quite the case for everyone.

The full story is here.

2. Incorrect picture painted in campus placement talks: Many global firms work under different legal entities but under one global brand umbrella in India. To make things clear, lets take a fictitious firm 'Remain Connected Corp', which has under it many legal entities such as 'Remain Connected R&D Center', 'Remain Connected Software Services Center', 'Remain Connected Consulting Team', 'Remain Connected Technologies', etc. In most campus placements, 'Remain Connected' would go as a single team for hiring but the offer letters are delivered by the different entities under its canopy. To a campus recruit, who is not aware of all these internal corporate crosswords everything appears to be the same. But after working in the industry for a year or two, when s/he realizes that s/he was offered a cozen pill, looking for opportunities elsewhere is the most pragmatic option. So my practical suggestion to all the campus recruits, dig deep below the surface and ask questions to the HR manager of the hiring firm, talk to friends/seniors/relatives who understand under the skin of the scenario before you finally accept any job offers.

3. Opportunities available: The present economy has opened up the doors of opportunities. If a person is skilled, smart and is a store house of ideas, s/he is like an appetizing cake, waiting for the market to react. Present day progressive forward looking youth aspire to see their career advancement as well as improvement in his net earnings in the shortest possible time. Demand for smart talent is always there, so when an individual doesn't find his/her present place of work to offer a hastening atmosphere, there are other avenues to explore may be in another firm, a start-up or a similar place.

Thanks to his own ambition, and to the Indian outsourcing boom, he escaped. He gained admission to the best engineering school in India, then landed a job that he could hardly have dreamed of as a child: writing software for Oracle, the U.S. technology giant.

"I fell in love," he said, recalling his first visit to Oracle's campus in Bangalore.

But Jain's zest eventually fizzled under the repetitive rigors of the Indian back office. So he did what a parade of burned-out functionaries in Bangalore have begun doing: He quit outsourcing to create his own start-up - in his case, designing cellphone software that blocks calls from telemarketers.

4. Change in mindset, among individuals and society: Gone are the days, when one stuck to a job even though it was not satisfying, solely on grounds of monetary benefits. The present generation wants money, no doubt about that, but it's just not money, it has to be enwrapped with stimulating job assignments and responsibilities. More often than not, the most heard verdict of a majority of individuals is.

Besides, they soon learn, the job is not really about programming at all... One such dude sums up the average IT career path on a Pagalguy forum:

There is not much of a ladder is S/W industry as such. For most life is quite typical. One or two years in a company. Then a chance to go onsite and see some money. Then back home. Another 2 years and then one becomes an analyst and after 5-6 years, a manager. And your engineering branch is the last thing that would matter here.

Even parents and family members, do not evaluate much when they realize that their children are not very happy with their professions and wish to pursue something that is completely out-of-the-box and divergent to their present occupations. These parents stand as pillars supporting their individuals realize their dreams. I know of few people who have left their regular 9 to 5 jobs in tech firms to work full-time for a NGO, to practice as a full time photographer, to run a restaurant, etc. The attrition resulting from this is miniscule but it does happen, more so with individuals who realize that they had boarded an in-correct ship that would never reach the destinations they had sculpted in their mind.

5. Not much liking towards big names as before: Today grandiloquent brands in job market do not draw as much awe as it used to few years back. Big names are subtly occupying increasingly lower positions in a candidate's priority list. Individuals are perfectly fine working with small and mid tier firms because it's a known fact that sometimes the biggies cannot match the salaries offered by successful second-rung companies which functions to an extent on a start up blueprint. More so many big firms have even withdrawn ESOPs, which were the main draw a few years ago. In contrast smaller companies are able to offer profit-sharing plans, interesting projects and more responsibility at an early stage in the candidate's career. This is like a ready made dish for a candidate working in a big firm shrouded with global policies, indefinite processes, layers of politics, and most important lack of visibility in a big crowd.Rashmi Bansal makes a cogent post here.

In just 3 short years, the world has changed. When I wrote this column for rediff.com in June 2004, it was still a big deal to join one of the Big Five. Except, perhaps at an IIT.

With the rising aspirations of fresh grads the same jobs have lost their sheen. The net has to be spread wider and wider, to tier 2 and tier 3 colleges, which would not be on the recruitment map at all a couple of years ago.

At a lesser known college it is a matter of pride that 'Infosys picked up 6 students'. The feeling is that of having 'arrived'.

But next year when 60 join, and then 100, the same 'we are being recruited like alu and pyaaz' feeling sets in.

Bottom line is: 'Aapne kaam se maatlab raakho, yeh big brand maain rakha kya hai'.

6. Higher studies plan: A sizeable number of campus recruits move to the U.S. or other countries to pursue higher studies and explore more attractive career opportunities after working in the industry for a year or two after their graduation. They form a small pool of the attrition camp. Few go abroad for their Masters degree, few for their PhDs and few others stretch their stay in India to apply later for an MBA program. It's not that foreign lands are the only destinations, these days many prefer to go for a Masters program in the IISc, IITs, NITs, or even BITS in the engineering and tech stream and to the coveted IIMs and other top ranked B-Schools after clearing the CAT in the domain of business management. Even ISB with its global tag in business education along with many other private schools in India partnered with other western schools of Business Management is an irresistible destination for many who wish to put their lives on a fast track road. Every year just before the admission season, many managers wait dumbfounded to see how many of the ambitious wickets would fall.

7. Relationship between manager and employee: A smart manager is one who can understand the aspirations of his/her employee and can harness the true capabilities and potentialities to the last drop, brusquely pointing the areas of improvement among the team members. Now that appears as a picturesque and cheeky definition never to be realized in reality because most the IT related work in India is service and maintenance oriented, which in turn is purely dependent on margins and numbers. But more often than ever, a manager can't do justice to both numbers and fulfilling aspirations and finds him/her self in a Catch-22 situation. For some inflammation or misunderstanding arising at work, involving the manager and employee, mostly the bosses chalk up the tension to a personality clash. There is a tendency, according to management experts, to think that personality is the cause of organizational discord rather than perhaps an effect of it.

Ben Dattner, an associate at Dattner Consulting executive coaching firm, believes that personality conflict might be a symptom of a larger organizational issue. "When I work with my clients, I often try to get them to see how it is not just a conflict between two people. I try to get them to see that it is also potentially a conflict between two visions, two agendas, two constituencies or two visions for the future."

The most practiced remedy in this case by young employees is to nip off the problem at its root, just leave the job and find a place that suits to one's personal liking in most aspects. Quite a number of exits happen in many firms because of the above mentioned reason.

8. Team one works for: Fresh out of engineering schools, many graduates have a swelled head for being a product from a top school in India. This is very much human and expected behavioral pattern that this crowd aspires to be a part of best of the available work/assignments in any organization in the initial days of his/her career. But since most of the IT industry in India is doused in services and maintenance layer of the entire business cycle as stated in Point. 7, easy to follow processes are defined to streamline the execution segment with élan and efficiency. After doing the same work in repetitive cycles, it's no rocket science and even a normal graduate can tackle that in the most cost effective way without necessitating the presence of smart engineers who demand higher pay checks for the same job.

This air of exclusivity and clannishness lingers in the minds of many for the initial first two years. Unfortunately if they happen to belong to a team that is of a different clan/tribe than their's in many vistas, they connect with their friends and settle in zones that match their bandwidth. A sizeable number of exits in many firms fall under this category.

As I mentioned here, the points stated above are my personal views and are collected from various sources. This is definitely not intended on any organization, firm, group or for that matter anybody and everybody. This is an open post and if someone is willing to share more views on this topic, do blog and tag back, write and share your views.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-05-26T06:46:00.004+05:30

Window with many views...

The mini-bus comes to sudden stop and I along with few of my colleagues board the bus, which would ply to my destination which is about 5 kms from where I reside. The day has just started and it's 8:30A.M. and the roads are already gridlocked. Congested roadways mean we spend hell lot of hours in traffic. Some newspaper reporter or township planning consultant would equate the lost hours in traffic to the surpassing loss of fuel, not to mention environmental damage, etc. In fact each one of us would have read endless stories on these topics, the infrastructure problems, few resolutions floated by citizen forums to curb this menace, being well aware that governmental action takes years to mature.

I am not going to repeat those chronicles again. This is my personal view from what I have seen, most of the people who quetch about traffic issues are master preachers. This should be done, doing things in that way would make the traffic flow seamlessly but those are the very same people who break the traffic rules, take a left turn when the small hoarding right in front says, 'No Left'. The same set of people who profess, that there is lot of pollution in the environment, are generally the ones who proudly own more than one vehicle which are fuel guzzlers and this is rigidly coupled with the environment contamination issues. You know this, I know this and we all know this. So let's leave the chapter closed here.

What I like, the most during my short long commute by bus is the colors, the multifariousness, the disparities that I see. The society, the changing dynamics of the economy, the emotions in action are the dominant players in this movie called 'The Race'.

Driving in city traffic does not involve a great deal of concentration because we are going through a route that we have traversed before at least more than 10 times and our minds are sort of automated to the flurry of external factors. But is it as smooth as it sounds in my words here? Definitely No.

Road rage and the sudden proliferation of irrational drivers are the prime traffic tremor creators. I feel that keeping aside the infrastructure shortcomings, most traffic jams aren't the result of an accident or a breakdown. The best place to show a child the dynamics of chain reaction is a busy traffic jam. I guess you are laughing now, or saying that I have gone crazy but tell me the truth have you encountered, this or not.

A driver reacts to another driver, more out of ego, disrespect for others, and non-acceptance of one's own fault than anything else. Imagine you are fiddling with the music player in your car, and unknowingly you get close to car in front, damn.....you hit the brakes, but it's a bit too late. This small mistake can make a queue of vehicles for miles and one gets to hear, the blaring sounds of horns from vehicles. Now if the two people who were involved, in minor mishap would have behaved with a small pinch of maturity, by bringing both the cars aside from the main path and then got into an argument or verbal tussle, then the traffic would have coursed smoothly. A single erratic vehicle can trigger feedback effects that push the entire system into state of stand stillness often denying passage for emergency passengers on the road such as a loaded cab plying to the airport, an ambulance transporting a patient to a specialized hospital in another corner of the city, etc.

How can you be on the road and miss the ubiquitous auto rickshaws. Often known for charging more than the accepted rates, I can see from my bus, an auto rickshaw driver bargaining with a lady, with one hand bent down with the laptop bag and the other carrying the lunch box, rushing to her workplace. 'Madam, traffic jam, madam one and half'. The lady finally agrees and the three wheeled speed demon snakes its way through bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Suddenly my eyes catch glimpse of some of the most adept multi-taskers and acrobats. True to the punch line of Hutch Telecom Services, which goes as 'Wherever you go our network follows', I find many people on bikes and on cars uttering, blabbing and talking on their mobile hand sets, completely oblivious of the outside cacophony. I also get to see benign material side of India's growing economy. After more decades of socialist deprivation, when consumer goods were so limited, today I see the latest models in gadgets right from my bus window. Laptops with plug in data cards for connectivity to the internet even when in transit, Blackberries synced with office e-mail box pumping in messages, iPhones, iPods playing music are no longer scenes restricted to the western world. I see these panoramas amidst traffic.

Earlier seen only on weekends, now seven days a week is their new schedule. I am referring to eunuchs in their usual makeup and sari. Clapping their hands and tapping the closed windows of the cars/jeeps if they are closed asking for money is a usual sight. Those in bikes and auto rickshaws pass on a one or two rupee coin to the eunuchs, immediately to avoid being hassled. Today one- or two-rupee coin has lost its value in general and the eunuchs at times turn aggressive when the amount tendered to them is less than five rupees.

I see, a long 'Q' of cars with the stickers of the various MNC firms on the rear glass, generally on one corner. Few small kids tap the rolled up windows asking for a rupee, probably that would buy them few peanuts or half cup of tea. Suddenly few bikes driven by handsome boys carrying their helmets, their stylish girl friends as pillion riders, dressed in thin sweaters over tights, short boots, high heeled boots, scarves tied snappily around their necks zip-zap-zoom past my bus. Just then I lift my head to see, a new billboard, sporting the flamboyant Vijay Mallaya and it has a catchy punch line 'King of Good Times'.

Right next to the billboard stands, a mother bony thin in physical built and carries a child in a thick blanket wrapped around her waist. The matted hair of the child has a dull look and the mother stares at another lady sitting inside an air conditioned car pampering her may be five year old kid with fresh fruits for breakfast.

You, I and everyone else feel good that India is in on a rapid economic transformation ride but for few, life seems very much the same.

The mother with her kid now shifts towards the new shopping arcade, hoping that someone would give her an amount that would feed her and her kid for the day. But no luck as the city's rich and nouveau either had spent their money buying Parisian lingerie, Swarovski crystals, FCUK apparels, flat-screen TVs, Virgin mobiles, Calvin Klein jeans, DVD players, digi-cams, and more and more and more or they are just not bothered.

My mind has been wandering across these various boulevards, intermittently flipping through the pages of 'In Spite of the Gods', tapping the window pane of the bus, suddenly to realize that the vehicle has come to a stop and its time for me to enter a classy office corridor.

Now this one is an interesting news that I read recently as to how the Royal Thai Traffic Police, trained 145 of its officers in basic midwifery. The reasons were to help newborn kids needing some help when stuck in the traffic, with their parents and to assist pregnant ladies deliver in traffic. The full story is here.

So next time onwards, don't crib when you are stuck in the traffic. Keep your eyes open and I can assure you a wide kaleidoscope of human emotions, expressions and behavioral patterns to view.

Keep reading and remain connected.

(Note: The picture was taken in Mumbai when stuck in a traffic jam.)

2008-05-22T16:37:00.007+05:30

Someone egged...

I read about this news on the web.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was recently forced to duck for cover under a barrage of (three) eggs during a speech he was giving at a Hungarian University. Apparently, the disgruntled egg-tosser was angry with Ballmer for "stealing billions in Hungarian taxpayer money," which he demanded that Ballmer give back "right now".

The video is below:

Unlike his team-mate, Bill Gates, who was smashed with a cream pie on his face, a decade ago, Ballmer was attacked with eggs when addressing a group of business and technology students at Budapest's Corvinus University. I am not judging this incident from a civic behaviour lens, or display of in-appropriate mannerism for the CEO of one of the world's biggest firms. That's for the various judges to do.

My analysis giving due respect to both the attacker and the attacked is as follows.

To the attacker: Man, don't you know that today the world is overcast by food crisis and you wasted two or three eggs.

guys i think hungarian university should conduct the target throwing tests he missed badly at short distance with more than two throws how sad.

In this regard, I have two options for you to improve your accuracy in hitting the target.

a. Join, the on the field net practise sessions with the Australian and South African cricket teams and even if you throw something from say 80 metres, you would still hit the bull's eye. You know that a game of dart, won't help you in this case because the distance is less.

b. I repeat again, loss of two/three eggs meant someone in some part of the world was deprived of a fluffy omelette. Instead other options worth exploring could have been throwing chairs, microphones and other items. The attacked in that scenario would either hide under desks or escape from the scene for protection. If you feel this is blithering, do check the live action in the video below.

To the attacked: Full points to you for standing for the firm, Microsoft of which you are the CEO. I break up the word Microsoft into two components: 'micro' and 'soft'. I strongly believe that, Ballmer you really epitomise and typify the two broken up words. Note that I am just breaking the word, nothing more nothing less.

Don't you think the physiological reaction of Ballmer to the stimulus within a 'micro' second was a sooper dooper example of micro-split-second-reflex. Someone attacks a person and the attacked takes a 'micro' second to find a safe shelter behind a table.

Fine then things settle in a while, then the attacked displays the 'soft' corner of his/her personality even after the assault. That's something brilliant.

Ballmer says, "Well, that was a friendly interruption" at the end of it, and within a few seconds is back to his speech.

From what I even learnt from my news reading, later in the day, he also accepted an honorary fellowship from the university. This exhibits the 'softer' side of his persona.

Do you agree with me or you don't?

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-05-20T14:34:00.004+05:30

Sunfeast World 10K Run...run maadi run...

For a moment forget the regular kvetching that one hears in various sources of news and media regarding Bangalore's woeful infrastructure issues. Keeping aside all these daily resentments, everyone rushed to the Kanteerva Stadium on a bright Sunday morning.

But what for? To be a part of the Sunfeast World 10K run, this is an international annual event, and was organized in India for the first time. The Sunfeast World 10k was touted as the richest 10k runs with total prize money of 150,000 USD up for grabs.

The event comprised of six races: World 10K Elite Men, World 10K Elite Women, Senior Citizens run (4 KM), Wheelchair event (4 KM), Open 10K Run and Majja Run (5.7 KM). Since the event was slotted between 6AM and 10:30AM, the city police authorities had made punctilious plans for minimal diversion of traffic during the four-hour marathon which saw active participation of around 20,000 people.

When I reached the spot around 7:30AM, preparations were in full swing for the Senior Citizens run which saw an impressive crowd of 700 plus participants. Most of senior citizens were aged above 60 but the energy and the exuberance that they displayed, quashed the roar of helicopters circling the stadium. Harmony, an NGO organized the senior citizens run. Each of the participants was given a T-shirt by Harmony and once they were dressed, there was a wave of uniformity at the starting point, very similar to a sight when children assemble in schools for morning prayer before classes commence. The highlight of this race was the high energy level of the senior citizens making them feel as if they were still in their teens. Jokes were cracked, few laughs were shared and there was an infectious air of camaraderie among these people who came not only from Bangalore but also from different parts of India.

Oprah Winfrey once said running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it. This was the kind of perseverance exhibited by a group of steel-willed people. Braving the heat and the dust, the handicapped persons maneuvered their wheel chairs, reflecting the true spirit of participation.

Suddenly the action shifted to inside the stadium because the World 10K Elite Men/Women had entered the final stage. In a closely contested run, Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea bagged the 1,50,000 US Dollar Sunfeast World 10K title by completing the marathon in 27:51 seconds just three seconds ahead of his rival Moses Kipsiro of Uganda. The women’s section witnessed the rarest of rare photo finishes in any 10k run, with both Grace Momanyi of Kenya and Elevan Abeylegesse of Turkey, declared joint winners. The complete results can be seen here..

There was cut throat competition in the Open 10K run which had large groups of amateur runners, trying their level best to live up to their own expectations. Few ran, few jogged and rest others just walked in the spirit of sport.

Everyone was indeed up and running. It was a place where the east met the west while running.

The most delightful aspect was to see each one run irrespective of caste, creed, color, religion, sex, age, language, region, etc.

There was one single motive to be a part of the excitement and ebullience.

The Majja Run as the name signifies (majja means fun) merriment was the epicenter of frolic and liveliness. Though the distance to be covered for this particular race was only 5.7 kms, what separated this one from the others were the variety and the diversity. There were runners turning up in varied costumes with powerful messages, banners and placards.

Few celebrities like Dino Morea, Rahul Bose, Charu Sharma and Vijay Amritraj had the crowd screeching as they made their appearance for the Majja Run. Everything here resembled a mini-carnival and fancy dress competition. Girls with different attention-getting dresses very much like the Indianized version of IPL cheerleaders attire.

Someone even put on special clothes to appear princely, like the mighty Tipu Sultan.

The one that surpassed every other costume in terms of ingenuity and colorations was the Ravana attire. Like a bee gets attracted towards nectar, participants were pulled in towards this individual dressed as Ravana to take a few snaps in the midst of the race.

There were lots of groups and voluntary associations such as Parikrma, Harmony and others who all came under one umbrella 'Bangalore Cares'. This aggroup participated in the race for a number of causes such as children welfare, greener and pollution free Bangalore, togetherness, etc.

How can an event of such extensive magnitude and variety happen without the support from corporate and business sponsors and advertisers? Well of course there were some sponsors from a wide spectrum. DHL was the logistics partner and it participated in big numbers, with few of the team members having flown from Mumbai. To name a few, Nike was the running partner, Kingfisher, the airline partner, Radio Mirchi as the radio partner, Manipal Cure and Care, as the medical and health partner, etc who passionately supported the cause and diversity of the World 10K experience. CNBC-TV18 was media partner and it brought the event live to millions of Indians on that day, to the television sets from 7AM onwards, along with a potpourri of other coverages and programmes related to this the event.

All is all it was a well organized event that got equally receptive reactions from all those who participated for this run. This race put Bangalore in the map of conducting with dynamism and zings a global marathon. More so, it was a testimony to the fact that multiple goals can be achieved through sports and citizen's active participation and above all how sports are a social leveler.

In this huge ocean of human beings, I could see some human faces which pulled my attention like a magnet pulls pieces of iron. There was this elderly woman selling ground nuts who was a bit perplexed to see a sea of people just running, a very new site from what sees in her day to day life.

This man was also confused to see this sudden wave of sneaker lovers on an otherwise traffic struck road.

But one of the most satisfying moment in this entire event running with my camera was to capture this bubbly toddler, who had come with her dad and brother (if you can see, the young brother is just hidden from the father) to be a part of this race. She was giving poses which to me meant, 'Daddy isn't allowing me to run or crawl this year, well next year I would be there to tip toe with other people'. That's a smart and emotionally charged expression, so I and my fellow Bangaloreans would wait for you, sunshine girl, till we meet again.

The rest of the pictures are in this album. Naama Bengaluru rocks as always.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-05-12T07:52:00.008+05:30

Who was she?...

Was Sa happy or was he chasing the rat race? Run, run and run and the road keeps extending. He doesn’t have a definite answer to this query but all he could say is that he was following a pattern, a pre-set societal blueprint. Every morning when he woke up, he used to think about the milestone that he had planned to reach, and late at night when he hit the bed, he used to do a catharsis of how close or how far he was from that destination.

Now if some sensible person asked Sa what he was after, he would struggle for a befitting reply, but all that mattered at that moment, clear like a crystal was to make it big, real big in life. He felt this 'real big' word was a bit deceptive. 'Real big' is like a mirage, the more nearer one goes, the farther the view range extends. Still there is a stage in life, when all these dichotomies just don’t matter much and there is one thing creeping in the mind. That one thing is some goal about which he knew but then again he didn't know.

Time passed by and the so did, Sa in his journey. He worked very hard, learned every trick in the trade. Soon he was walking, talking and behaving like one of those in the business circles, the 'in', 'with it' crowd. Everything he did was always pointed towards getting what he wanted, measured, calculated and assessed. It's not that success was his partner all the time, even the numerous lessons in failure alongside, made him worked harder. His career needle was accelerating northwards, with muddiness still sitting like a couch potato within him. He made lots of friends, who were always there in times of celebration and festivity but couldn't count on any when there was dark cloud over his ceiling.

The badges and emblems of worldly success were slowly getting into his bag. Everyday at around midnight, when he opened the door of the apartment, he was sure that he was getting one step closer to his target. He was not afraid of the loneliness that awaited him as he knew it was only for half a night, and then as morning drew close, he felt energized hoping that in a few hours he would be in his kingdom, with his rules of governance.

And then she came, to use a cliché, like a breath of fresh air after long gap. She was everything that he was not, she stood for everything that he did not, she believed in everything that he did not, she did everything that he did not.

She reminded Sa of the senior professor, who had assigned him with a bagful of responsibilities about a decade ago while he was an intern. Polite, poised, well-behaved, never loosing temper, accommodating, in short humility personified. These are a few commonalities that they shared, but there was a lot more to this remarkable woman. It was kind of a scenario in which one feels overloaded with words to express but you just can’t express. Heart in heart, there is a sudden flood of phrases, similar to the kind when water gushes when the dam gates are opened. She seemed too good to be real. Did he mention she was good? Maybe he was using that word because he was short of words as to how to describe her. Yes, she was good in the sense that she was good in what she believed in, stood for or did. And perhaps that was what made him like her, though he often found her beliefs unearthly, her attitudes and values outdated. Sa could not but admire the way she stood for them and acted on them and, yes, she was really good in that. She stood for 'what you preach is what you practice'.

Sa having come across a host of personalities in his work-circle somehow found her to be unreal. She did not behave like the people he interacted with or dealt with in his day-to-day life, and that really made him comfortable on the surface and uncomfortable in the interior.

She made all his years of bookish experience and knowledge feel like useless, though that was never her intention. That’s how Sa felt it, all acquired skills were just bi-sected and looked upon in a different angle. He was trained to always read between the lines, to study the body language, to know what a person really meant. He always tried to study the expression in the eyes, as they normally did not lie. He also developed the skill that enabled him to see through the veils of words spoken and signals sent. He was trained to differentiate between a genuine smile and a fake one. He learnt to gauge the degree of warmth in a person.

Did any book teach him that, nah nah never.

Everybody around Sa was an actor. Yes, they did show emotions, but everything was calculative. Every smile was calculated every tear was accounted for, every hug executed to enhance relationships, every handshake to convey messages. He was with everyone, but did not belong to anyone. Every relationship had its own value and place in the larger scheme of things and served some purpose or the other and always acted as a mean. Sa was not apologetic about this because everybody did it. That’s the way, life is modeled after in today’s age. Rather, that’s the only way Sa had seen the world so far.

And as Sa said at the very beginning, was he happy? Still no clues about that.

But, she changed all that. He tried to read between the lines, study the body language and always noticed for the eye movements; few were positive hits but every time he failed, he failed miserably. This irritated him, frustrated and angered him; Sa felt he was losing the edge, the ability to get through the veils of people, and that really was a scary thought. So, he tried harder since he never accepted defeat, he was not a loser. But, he failed time and again. But there are times in life, when even the taste of defeat brings comfort.

Her actions always matched the words she spoke, her smile was always genuine, and her hug was always full of warmth. But, how could this be true? How could a person live without pretending or shamming?

From the day she started living with him, his world turned upside down. He returned home early, yes it had become a home, it was not a house bordered by concrete walls anymore. Now, when he inserted the key, he knew there was someone to attend to him. He knew she genuinely cared for him. Her relationship was free flowing, because Sa was the end as well as the starting point for her. Her love for him was unconditional and unselfish and it did not have any ulterior motive, she loved him for what he was.

She cooked all his favorite dishes; she knew what he wants, when. She nurses him when he is ill, she takes him in her arms when he wants to cry (most often in the railway stations and airports before the final departure call) so that Sa feels secure. After so many years, he can laugh and cry when he wants to, not when others expect him to.

Sa is no longer a restless soul anymore. He doesn’t wake up everyday to run and remain ahead of the crowd. Yes, he still enjoys his work, but it is no more the centre point of his existence. There is a big world to explore, just that someone needs to provide one with the right lens to checkout the right colors. He does no longer want to achieve 'it' or reach 'there'. And yes, he is very happy, and this happiness is not a superficial, non-penetrating and deep, vacant feeling like it was earlier. Now his happiness does not need a measuring rod, is not linked to the things Sa is doing or achieving. This makes his new found happiness, complete, composite, stress-free and devoid of any pressure or worries. Yes, it is for real.

And, this has become possible because of her. Sa wonders how he managed all these years without her, after he left for his graduation school. He regrets not having her with him for so long. But, he is glad that he has her now and he wants to make up for all the lost time. He wants to tell her how much he loves her, how essential and integral she is to his existence, how meaningful she has made his life, and Sa wants to thank her for all the things she has done and keeps doing for him, for all the love she has given him, for the care and concern she has shown him and, most importantly, for always being there for him whenever he needs her.

That night after dinner, when she came and sat beside Sa, all he could do was look into her eyes and say, 'Maa, I love you.'

She took him in her arms, patted his back and said, 'Stupid, you need not say that. I know you love me.'
Happy Mother's Day.

Keep reading and remain connected.

(Note: The pic in this post is by David Zimmerly, an anthropologist and world traveler.)

2008-05-05T00:55:00.006+05:30

Learnt this and still more to learn...

Let's go back a bit to the +2 days when solving problems in physics was something that was really interesting and challenging at the same time. Cracking problems from books in Physics by Halliday-Resnick-Walker and Sears-Zemansky was absorbing and engrossing. For instance, solving problems on topics such as velocity, acceleration, momentum was fascinating but when it came to relative velocity, I have seen many students get a bit jittery. Reason for this is that both my subject and object of reference are in motion. Even initially, I used to have problems, but once I grasped the concepts well, I realized that its nothing difficult but an extension of the solving problems related to velocity.

But why am I talking about relative velocity out of the blues?

Though the link is not that straight forward, I scribbled the above part to draw an analogy.

Think when was the last time, you took an awesome picture using a camera. I can smell something here. When the composition was still, you managed to capture the frame, pretty decently to your personal satisfaction. Now when you tried to photograph any moving subject, you were disappointed with your results. Either the picture was blurred or something was faulty that you didn't like.

Can motion pictures be clicked with ease? I feel, yes.

All one needs to do is to understand the shutter speed and aperture adjustment in the camera. I know of a simple technique called panning, which I learnt recently and with this, you can accurately get the output as the one you would have conceived in your mind.

Without getting into too much of technicals, I would say that the aperture adjustment would control the amount of light entering the camera and the shutter speed would control the duration of time the light is exposed. For panning, I would need a slow speed, may be 1/15 second or slower. To take pics of moving subjects, you may opt for a fast shutter speed to freeze the subject. If the selected shutter speed happens to be faster than the subject speed, the final output that you would get would be static and the pictorial element of motion would be missing.

A recommended technique is to select a slower speed and follow the subject along as you take the photograph. This is essentially what panning is all about. There is no rocket science in this and all it needs is a bit of creativity and imagination and then your pictures are just perfect.

In panning outputs, the main subject is sharp against a blurred background. The idea is very simple, just follow the subject when it passes in front of you and keep continuing doing that as you press the click button on your camera and then even after the shot is taken. It's like the inertia.

How do I do it? Just keep your feet firm and still, and then rotate the top half of your body as you chase your subject. Before doing that, you should have pre-focused your camera, with all the necessary settings at a reference point where your subject will pass through. A darker background is always preferred and adds to the output. Like the relative velocity analogy, in this case, once you are comfortable with the shutter speed and apertures in the camera settings, and add to it a pinch of one's imagination, panning becomes an easy nut to crack.

In all the three pics that you see above, the shutter speed was set at about 1/15 seconds.

More on panning here. Try this and it's really addictive, don't you feel so? Hey, and don't forget to share your pictures, so that even I can learn more.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-05-02T09:03:00.000+05:30

Lost in the Woods @ Parambikulam...

Two days and the distance that I had to cover was close to 50 kms, trekking thorough one of the best biodiversity hotspots in India. Can I do this or I can't, a cloud of incertitude eclipsed my mind. With this dubiety kicking in mind, I boarded the bus a late Friday night after the day’s work hoping that the weekend would end up with some exciting experiences.

The next day morning, I woke up as the bus stopped in search of the correct route when we reached Pollachi. While we were motoring along the road planked on both sides by trees, I could see big billboards of Jayalalita and Karunanidhi which confirmed my curiosity that we were in Tamil Nadu.

But we were going for trek in the forests of Parambikulam which is in Kerala. The puzzle got resolved when I learnt that the only entrance to this wildlife sanctuary is through the Anamalai Wildlife sanctuary which is in Tamil Nadu. We paid all the necessary fees at the check post to get into the sanctuary and the sky appeared a bit cloudy that day.

Along with few others, I was going to start my trek which is commonly known by the name 'Tramway Trek'. There is a little bit of history to this which says...

The tramway was set up in 1905 under the visionary of Maharaja of Cochin Sri. Rama Varma to transport Cochin teak from Parambikulam to Chalakkudy. From there it could be exported to the rest of the world thorough the Cochin Harbour. The total stretch of this tramway is close to 49.5 miles running through the thick forest, crossing many rivers and the time taken to cover this distance was 9 hours. It was around 1953 that this tramway was stopped for a number of reasons.

All that remains today are the remnants in the form of rails, bridges, wagons, etc. A couple of years back as a befitting tribute to the centenary of the Cochin State Forest Tramway, an eco-friendly trekking plan was launched along the tumbled down tramway route. The foot trail along this rail trail will give an opportunity to see the remainders of bygone days of the transport system, besides seeing hundreds of birds and animals including tiger, elephant, sambhar, spotted deer, sloth bear, porcupine etc.

This is one of the best managed wildlife sanctuaries in India.

The bus took all the trekkers near the gate of the Parambikulam Dam, which was the starting point of our trek. From the bus, what we saw were a pleasure to eyes, peacocks dancing in the woods and spotted deer milling around.

The route offered some fresh sites that made me indulge in fantasy as if someone was using the river water bed as a mirror to teach the basics of reflection.

The trek started at around 10AM and by now the sun was shining bright and smart. The entire trek course was along the river and it was amazingly beautiful.

Since, the initial trek path is flat and regular, I was looking for some excitement and it was just the right time that our guide showed us a herd of elephants near the river bank. After drinking water and cleaning themselves, the elephants moved towards the trek route and this was an ultimate moment of excitement. These colossal creatures were just 60 meters away from the group. We were all lying on the forest’s leaves carpeted floor like soldiers in a war field and I positioned my camera lying down to get a perfect composition. People wearing white shirts and caps immediately put on something non-white because elephants react aggressively to white color. We were resting on the forest floor with pin drop silence, except for the sound of the birds chirping in the woods and the crackling sound that one gets when walking over a bed of dry leaves till the gang of elephants and calves (total number was around 15) passed by.

It was 11:30 AM by then. Our guide told us that, we could catch some more wild actions since this was the time when a bunch of tigers would plunge into the river for some coolness. Hope ran high, but we couldn’t trace them. But we spotted few crews of deer and sambhar, but these species being a sensitive lot, vanished when they encountered a foreign element in their territory.

The gang reached a small tribal colony in the midst of the forest at around 1:30 in the noon for a small break after having trekked for around 10kms. The entranceway to the tribal colony was a bridge across the Kuriakutty River. The bridge though not in operation, still stands intact and the rail line snakes through some thrilling landscape.

Lunch was served to us by the tribal people, which comprised of simple rice, sambar and cabbage fry dished out in dry leaf plates. The food provided the much needed energy and the journey started again. The dry forest was slowly given way to dense evergreen forests.

En route, we traced many birds such as grey hornbills, the great pied hornbills, etc. Also I found some snake's outer skin, hanging from the branch of a tree.

As I was trekking through this abode of greenery, a lot of emotions swam through my mind. And one needs to be in such a secluded place to feel vulnerable to the wild, exhilarated, beatified, commoved, expectant, anticipative, disappointed and happy at the same time. There was exquisite greenery all around with no presence of human beings and I was walking alone with music on my ears courtesy my iPod. It just appeared that the road ahead was never ending.

It was around 5 PM in that we reached the endpoint of day one trekking. The night stay was in an anti poaching camp at Muthuvarachal right next to the flowing river at an elevated altitude. Just imagine the excitement, when someone is there in the dense forest, with the only source of light as either the moon-light or the candle light. Insects creaking and mosquitos' bombinating to attack were the only sounds that one could hear. Even though this camp was at a raised tract, surrounded by trenches, there were still chances of tracing some wild animals in the pitch dark.

We had dinner, which was boiled rice and legumes again courtesy, our tribal friends. We woke early in the morning the next day at around 6 AM and set out for a walk. The jungle was fresh with the earthy smells of the morning. Strolling through the luxuriant vegetation, we saw some pugmarks of a leopard and marks left when the prey was dragged over the dampish soul.

We returned from our morning jaunt and had our breakfast at around 9AM. Then we started for our return journey which lacked verve and we planned to trek till lunch time. As I trekked I could see lots of 'manchans' (tree-top houses) but the most interesting finding was a bird studying center in the heart of the forest. This unit is built in the honor of late Dr. Salim Ali, a renowned ornithologist who had found more than 100 species of birds, traveling on the tram way route.

I saw a wide variety of insects, frogs and other creatures during my return journey. It was around 2PM that, we all had lunch in the same tribal colony, where we had food the previous day. Since we were drained out of energy, our guide asked us to take the Tempo traveler else it wouldn't have been possible for us to leave the forest by 6PM.

As the vehicle was traversing through the bends and the curves of Western Ghats, the scene of the Parambikulam dam was breathtaking from a higher altitude. The next break point was to see the largest and the oldest (as it is close to 450 years now) teak tree in the world, Kannimara Teak. Parambikulam was once home to some of South India’s finest stands of teak but most of these are now replaced by teak plantations, which cover around 9000 hectares of forest land.

We saw a couple of monkeys, lion-tailed macaques, Indian Gaurs too from the Tempo traveler. By now it was 6PM and the return journey to Bangalore started. We made a couple of stops on the way back for dinner and for having tea from road side stalls and before we could realize, we were back in the concrete jungle by 4:30 AM.

Since I was tired, I took some rest before the grumbling and groaning Monday work started, unwilling to let go of the endearing and striking Sunday. Monday, I had a business meeting in the Taj Hotel at Bangalore, and then when I was having lunch there in the neatly manicured gardens, it just reminded me, how life changes suddenly. Just 24 hours ago, I was in the woods having food in a tribal colony and now I am in a restaurant, with a great assortment of cuisines.

Well that's how life is. Take it as it comes.

The remaining pictures of the trek are here in this album.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-04-30T10:10:00.007+05:30

One of the costliest slap...

If MTV gives viewers 'One Tight Slap', someone else gives that in a cricket field. By now a lot of hysteria has been generated over a match between Mumbai Indians vs. Kings XI Punjab in the on-going IPL season. The latest I read yesterday was that the inflammation is sorted now and things are back to normal and entertainment continues. Back to sixes, fours, and not to forget the cheerleaders dancing.

After the angry slap incident, a panel investigated on this foolhardy behavior of Harbhajan on the field which amounts to level 4.2 offence under the ICC Code of Conduct. Level 4.2 relates to physically assaulting a fellow player, match official or spectators. The final verdict related to this issue was rendered by the IPL match referee and former Test stumper, Farokh Engineer. Bhajji was slapped a 11 match ban and he can't play in the remaining IPL matches.

But these brought to my mind few points.

1. This one is purely related to the economics part of it. This slap will go down in history as one of the costliest slap ever. In this case, both Harbhajan and Sreesanth would be immortalized with the former as the conferrer and the later as the recipient of the most high-priced slap. Harbhajan was auctioned for a whopping $8,50,000 (approximately Rs 3.4 crore), the buyer being Reliance Industries.

Just simple mathematics shows close to what Harbhajan earns and what he losses in this opera. Assuming that there are 14 matches he is going to play for IPL.

Gain = (3/14)*3.4 = .73 crores INR.
Loss = (11/14)*3.4 = 2.67 crores INR.

Bhajji, 'yeh thapad tujhe baahut mAhAnga paada dost.'

2. This is kind of a googly for me. Is Harbhajan that unfledged, a school kid, or is he a professinal who has played for India for close to 10 years in the test and one day format of the game ? Does he not know that his heroics and skirmishes will have ripple effect later. He knew what happened in Australia a couple of months back, was that sequence not enough to ring alarm bells ? Is caution the key for him or his short temper attitude? I guess Bhajji knows what's the best answer is for him.

3. I feel like laughing to see poor Sreesanth, crying like a kid after the slapping incident. I personally feel that Sreesanth's weeping was more of drama and role-playing than reality. The entire crowd and TV viewers know how he makes faces, good, bad, ugly on the field. I can equate his act to that of Italy's Marco Materazzi, who re-acted as if a missile had pierced his heart, when he was head butted by Zidane. Man, c'mon in the practice sessions in football, they are trained for more severe physical onslaughts. Anyways, after lot of brassy news over the cheerleaders, this incident added a new twist to IPL and made for some interesting news.

4. Everyone knows, at least I consider this, if I put it the right way, Mumbai is the Mecca of cricket in India. Bhajji donned the captaincy hat because Sachin was injured. So didn't he not realize that, he had a whole lot of more responsibilities and obligations as he was replacement for someone, who is one of the biggest legends of cricket, Sachin Tendulkar. The way Bhajji behaved, displayed it was a smacking not only on Indian cricket, but also on the city that breathes cricket and is passionate about it to the core. Think of Sachin Tendulkar, how many times in his career he has been haunted and tormented by the media and others during his rough patches, when marked by under-performance. How many times, has he raised his voice even while replying in the press, forget being aggressive with the reporters. He uses his bat and keeps cricket lovers stunning with the passing years, his bat does the speechmaking and not his histrionics.

Also, everyone knows that IPL is all about cricket with oodles of entertainment, glamour, money, etc involved in it. Come to think of it's sheer business, barons and tycoons have pumped in tremendous amounts of money, so each of the teams would try to outshine the others. But that doesn't mean that with a loss, someone is going to behave irrationally. Fine, agreed that Mumbai team had lost all its initial matches, but that doesn't mean the team lacks talent. It's just that this is a different fast-food format of cricket, and there is whole lot of new experimentations (ex: player X from Y region is not playing for Y region but for Z region.). Also many people forget that Mumbai has the maximum number of Ranji Trophy Titles (a pure and original format of cricket sans the showbiz), i.e. 37 which as far as I know is the highest number won by any team. So what if they are little behind in this new phaata phaat generation cricket.

Bhajji, was this too much of gyan for you?

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-04-23T16:53:00.005+05:30

Green Earth Day...

Someone calls it the 'Earth Day', someone calls it the 'Green Day'. Do we need to shudder and get scary with tomes of news on global warming? Some basic questions come to our mind, Is the world really heating up? Are all the takes on greenhouse gas emissions just void talk or is something really happening? Or is there concrete statistics to augment the catastrophes and tragedies that may occur because of global warming, the world's greatest environmental threat, ...right now?

One school of researchers and analysts, feel that the greatest global threat is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco.

The problem here is not that of climate change per se, but rather that of the sophisticated scientific brainwashing that has been inflicted on the public, bureaucrats and politicians alike. Governments generally choose not to receive policy advice on climate from independent scientists. Rather, they seek guidance from their own self-interested science bureaucracies and senior advisers, or from the IPCC itself. No matter how accurate it may be, cautious and politically non-correct science advice is not welcomed in Westminster, and nor is it widely reported.

But the other school the covers the rest majority feels that, 'Yes' there is a change in the world: climatic, environmental, societal, ecological and in other related domains.

Let's not get into the complex web of questions and the mesh of answers that would spring up. Let's tackle or talk about something that is very basic and affects our life in someway or the other.

How does it feel for someone who resides in Bangalore, to drive back home in the late evenings or in the afternoon? Has the summer temperature risen? Do you feel the same as you used to feel in the night, say ten years back in the city of Bangalore, incase of a power failure? Lets not delve into metrological data to find a reply to these questions. We experience this everyday and even one need not be educated in basics of science to understand the underlying causes. Each one of us knows that there are some external factors, few man-made and few natural, that are acting in a devious way to cause this state of suffocation.

Can we avoid this?

Yes, we can avoid this. Avoid not by indulging in big talks and sessions, like take the case of the US President, Bush. This chap goes around the world stating that we need to do this, we need to do that, the fast growing Asian economy is the biggest chimney for the disaster. Contrary to this, the US adds more pollutants and toxins to the atmosphere and environment than any other nation in the world. Let me not digress here and stick to the pivotal point, that is each one of us as a responsible citizen can make a difference.

There is a lady in Bangalore, Janet who has planted more than 650 trees so far in the city which today witnesses ruthless mowing down of trees for broadening of roads and adding new physical infrastructure to meet the needs of a growing economy.

I also know of an interesting initiative, spearheaded by a team of nature lovers, that has gathered momentum in the city of Mysore. The team is known as FORT (Friends Of Roadside Trees) and to know more you can check its site here.

Even the IT and technology firms have taken proactive actions to contribute towards this endeavor in their own smart ways. A couple of days back, I read an article that states how Google partially powers its huge data centers with solar power, using the energy derived from the solar photovoltaic panels.

Recently Yahoo! launched a magnificent information portal that is a one stop center to gather info about climate change and environmental news. The Yahoo! Green website page has a number of tabs, each catering to a specific topic, Global Warming, hints to lead a Green Lifestyle, etc. Two of the biggest internet giants, with their game plans for a greener world and this tickles, Michael Arrington from Techcrunch with a curious question: Google vs. Yahoo, who cares most about the environment?

Last weekend, I was in IIMB for the Barcamp and there was an interactive session on 'innovation'. The intention of introducing the word 'excogitation' or 'innovation' is to highlight the fact that with a little bit of out of the box thinking, we can recycle and reuse for a greener planet.

It's simple, just ride a special type of tricycle to a local water source, fill water to a small tank in the back of the tricycle. Pedal back home and by the time you reach home, you get a tank of 20 gallons of filtered water and also in the process you didn’t add any pollutants or toxins to the atmosphere. Add to this, you even did physical exercise while cycling.

Watch the video to see how it works.

Keep reading and remain connected.

Today one word 'reading' in my usual blog signature 'Keep reading and remain connected.' triggered a debatable question. To me reading (other than news and blogs) is synonymous with having my own hard copy of the books. This corresponds to a simple equation, books need pages, pages need paper, paper need trees to be felled. So am I responsible? or Should I turn fast to be an e-book lover? I am confused now.

2008-04-16T17:07:00.005+05:30

Verbal Slips...

Grrrrrrrrrrr, someone again has become a feed for an unfortunate verbal stumble. Barack Obama's name has been mauled many a times in the past, ever since he started his sprint for 2008 White House run.

In 2007, CNN confuses Obama for Osama.

Then later in the year, around Oct'2007, the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was again bit by this tongue-twister-in-name bug. Or was it kun'fyoozhun. It was a classic mix-up and this is how it went. In this case Romney was referring to the audiotape of Osama bin Laden and holla he just mis-spoke.

"Actually, just look at what Osama - Barack Obama - said just yesterday. Barack Obama, calling on radicals, jihadists of all different types, to come together in Iraq. That is the battlefield. ... It's almost as if the Democratic contenders for president are living in fantasyland. Their idea for jihad is to retreat, and their idea for the economy is to also retreat. And in my view, both efforts are wrongheaded."

Now thumb rule if you are contesting for the hot seat at the White House. Don't have a name that has any semblance in diction or in spelling to any of the warlord honchos. I am not joking here, many people may not be aware that Obama's full name is Barack Hussein Obama. Now, the second word in the name is/was tied with 'Hussein' tag of the military strongman Saddam Hussein.

All this tittle-tattle, doesn't end here. Even Barack and Iraq sound the same phonetically towards the later part. It's like 'ack' and 'aq' end up producing the same sound.

Now as if all this was not enough, another boo-boo happened this Monday in the presence of hundreds of news executives and TV cameras at the Associated Press's Annual Luncheon.

Dean Singleton, chairman of the AP's board of directors and head of Denver-based MediaNews Group, slipped when asking the senator if he could envision sending many more US troops to Afghanistan, where "Obama bin Laden is still at large".

Ah ha Obama bin Laden. Senator Obama like a kid had a questioning look and then goes on to say, "I think that was Osama bin Laden."

Singleton apologized for the faux pas but Obama handled the situation with a dose of humor and with a mild laugh, told the audience.

"No, no, this is part of the exercise I've been going through for the last 15 months," Obama said. "Which is why it's pretty impressive that I'm still standing here."

The crowd cheered the leader for his attitude and also offered him a sympathetic round of applause. Clap clap clap, anyways the media had a ball of a time.

Now why did this bloomer, cause so much of interest in me. Suppose someone has a name 'tanay' and just a minor adjustment of alphabets makes it 'tanya'. Now this alteration creates a hell lot of difference, do I have to say more, you better decide.

Btw, Obama, I can understand what it feels like, when one is a prey to these modest verbal goof offs. Let's not bother on these verbal slips, we have lots on our plate to do, you continue on your campaign and let me continue with my mazdoori.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-04-08T06:39:00.004+05:30

The Common Man...

'Whatever I make must be affordable to the common man'. These were the words of Chinni Krishnan who is acknowledged as the father of the sachet revolution in India.

But who is the common man?

Is he the fictitious character which R.K.Laxman, created that has decorated the Times of India's front page even before I was born. A man in his puckered dhoti and a checked shirt, ever silent yet always representative of the hopes, aspirations, troubles, achievements, strengths, weaknesses and idiosyncrasies of an average India.

Or

Is he is part of the crowd that is today most sought after by the various engines of India's burgeoning economy. A 'Nano' car for the common man, 'Nokia' mobiles for the common man, 'Simputer', the computer for the common man, 'Air Deccan', the common man's airline, etc.

Or

Is he the one who is today fading in the shadows of anonymity? Someone lost in this world of consumerism and inflation, hunted down by the agents of power and prestige, someone who puts his sweat for his daily bread, but whose voice is on the fringe of decision making circles.

Replies to this simple question: 'Who is the common man?' was the theme of an interactive play, 'The Common Man' by the Yours Truly team, that I attended a couple of days back at Rangashankara in Bangalore.

Before we proceed, let me tell you, why this was tagged as 'interactive' play. The plot of the story would flow for a while and then it stops abruptly in the midway. Then the audience is asked to weave its viewpoints to end the chronicle. Opinions are then stitched to end the story, after which the actors complete the ending as given to them by the audience.

The story begins with the birth of a common man who like you and me attends school, becomes ardent follower of rote learning, graduates from an average college, gets married, has a regular job and runs his family. All these stages are 'ordinary' and 'common' and is very much a part of the social fabric that surrounds us.

In this portrayal of daily life and its interconnected parts, the artists on stage covered a kaleidoscope of events. To cite a few are, the regular neighborhood scuffle, the incursion of mobiles into each and every aspect of our lives, traffic jams, etc. The common man works in an office among some smart IIT-IIM educated graduates, believes hard work and honesty as priceless tenets only to realize one day that the 'Best Employee' award is feted to someone always kowtowing to his boss. The common man witnesses tinges of city life and wants to be a part of that lifestyle, but his meagre pay cheque throttles his inclinations. The dark irrational blocks of thought acting like a corrosive fluid had destroyed the way he looked at life. As time passes by his only child grows, is educated and is married to a girl who prefers to be a part of the apartment culture, rather than stay with the in-laws. In short, the plot swinging between modernity and bumpkinly, clouds the common man in state of confusion.

For someone, part of a herd known for slow cooking and eating leisurely, adjusting to a microwave cookware generation is not easy. The common man finds himself in such a situation.

Life goes on and everything moves on the regular way.

One day while returning from work, something unusual and not so ordinary thing happens. Out of the blues, the common man is selected to appear on a TV interview.

Stop stop stop, the story comes to a sudden halt here.

Will the common man come on TV interview? If yes, why? Will he speak and if he does, what will he speak? This opened a train a questions, the answers to which was provided by a potpourri of views by the audience. An air of camaraderie engulfed the auditorium as comments bounced back and forth among the viewers before tailoring the final plot. It took about twenty minutes to complete this exercise.

The performers were sitting on the stage and listening as the plot was knit. They were back again on action without any rehearsal once the final plot was decided.

The common man attends the TV interview and for the first time in the play, he opens his mouth and speaks out. He becomes a small time celebrity, an unheralded change from his previous image of a common man. Few in the society look upto him with awe, offer him regards and perfunctory politeness. The common man is still the same person as he was, before metamorphosis to his new stature to his family members and a handful of his relatives. Some things change for good, some remain as it was before, but the inner soul of the common man is still in turmoil, in civil war. One fine day, he breaks free from the monotony of life and ventures into a secluded place where he can find peace. Shaky but much better perched, the common man starts writing his autobiography highlighting the traumas, the annoyances, the triumphs, the frictions, etc. A dozen different scenarios all fleshed out in considerable detail.

Then there is a brief silence. The common man cries like a child and says, 'time goes fast and yet it is so dull here and all he wants is to be the same common man and lead his life the common way'.

The play ends.

All these scenes were played on stage with the effective usage of light and gestures, without any props. The only accessories that were used were a few colored dupattas and a bunch of umbrellas. The performers on stage made good use of tingling umbrellas which when used in a bunch symbolized the vexations that crossed the common man’s mind.

The sudden appearance of the common man in a TV interview was a symbolic representation of reality programming that has put the viewers at the heart of a transformation. A transformation that is allowing a few to attain the 'megastar' status, leaving rest others as small time celebrities who are tickled for a short while to be left on their own to struggle later. This was my interpretation.

The team was definitely enjoying while performing on stage as the audience could feel the flow of energy and enthusiasm in a palpable wave. The play was written by Nandini Rao and was directed by Nandini Rao and Ranji. The young cast consisted of Amit Agarwal, Amrutha Varshini, Gaurav Gupta, Karan Shah, Nandini Rao, Pramod Nair, Radhika Mehra, and Sumit Acharya. There was no elaborate settings for music too. The background music was through a keyboard played by Vasanth Mohanraj and few songs that garnished the play were by Gaurav Hombali.

All in all a good performance that all the more made an otherwise ordinary evening stuck in traffic, more pleasant.

The play got over by 9PM and I went out for dinner with Ni at a restaurant. Once we were done with the dinner, it suddenly started raining cats and dogs. Ni left for home and I was all alone on a lonely road, rain pouring down with ferocity. I was walking with a meek umbrella above my head, which couldn't bear the pitter-patter of the rain drops as they danced violently over the thin membrane. An unappeasable wonder which believes that there is a speck of a general truth in every thing, suddenly traversed my mind. I guess it was right, as like the common man with an umbrella, I was another common man, with my umbrella fighting with low visibility to reach home soon.

There was a comment that temporal, an editor at Desicritics had left. I liked the fluidity of his expression.

i do not know when i became a 'man'
yes i was young once and watched
other boys playing cricket in the street
i was naked and had runny nose
and other boys would not include me
but i did clap and leapt with joy
whenever someone hit a six
sometime later the other boys would
hit on my sister, but me? no such luck
i was scraping the floor at iron smith's
and while helping the old geezer
i would still applaud when the boys
returned from school and played cricket
occasionally my boss would curse and
twist my ears red for applauding a six
in some years they became babus
and i learned to mold iron in clay
and got married and had my own kids
one after another with runny noses
and bloated stomachs and they also
applauded from sidelines wistfully
i am forty now and look sixty plus
and i still do not know
when i became a 'man'
this is my common story

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-03-21T15:08:00.003+05:30

Each Face has a story...

In my occasional travels to the hinterland, I have noticed that the many of these places differ radically from each other but most seem to offer something new to learn and taste some new colors. Through my lens, I tried to capture few of these effective representatives of raw beauty of that society.

In most cases here, the simplicity of the subject is directly proportional to the sophistication of the output that one gets from the click. In one of my posts, temporal had left a comment:

would love to see "portraits"

without flash, of course...in natural light and shades the faces tell stories that words fail to capture (mostly)

I fully agree to each and every word in that statement by temporal, that the cloud of raw emotions do convey a story that words fail to capture.

The facial gesture reminds me that nothing is concealed.

Some eloquent silences but even this silence offers soothing words of warmness.

His face is a palette of light, a landscape that offers one to see the geometry of everyday life in the barest form.

The inelastic and expressive wrinkles echoed and re-echoed, a motley of emotions. Like in this case, it sends a mixed message, stewing in silence.

He seems blate, almost shy. His expressions evoke an intimate, possibly wordless, dialogue.

He is looking right into my camera, his turbaned head tilted a bit, but his eyes and the white beard catch the light and lens just so, revealing something of a soulful vulnerability and thoughtfulness. An obvious mix of tension and diffused graceful touch.

Just as each wrinkle of an old moccasin reveals a story about the foot that wore it, this grandma like figure's smiley face with the stark features convey a fascinating wordless tale.

He comes close in this picture to perceive, what is behind the mask of the face, that spark and glow of life? I feel its satisfaction and the maturity that flows fluidly back and forth.

Lost in thoughts, there is a kind of loneliness, a sadness in his eyes as the trails of smoke from his beedi, perfects his mood.

Talking to these people, thorough the lens is also like working to untangle fragments of personalities. Waiting lounges in airports, a gathering near a chai shop, the city markets, etc always tease with the promise of a story the viewer of these urges to be told. The frames always offer something new and entice one to come back again.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-03-02T17:42:00.000+05:30

Jalta Hii Jaye...

Hey, what is your name?

My name is Roshni. I don't know but different people call me by different names, some call me Tejaswini and some call me Ruchi.

But you know what....I dislike the most. My live is so short lived that sometimes, I feel that, wish I could have lived a little longer.

But then, does the time span that one lives matter? No generic answers to this. Again to each it's own. For some small is big and for few big is small.

But mere dost,

In this world you could easily,
Get lost, embodying bigness.
But then at least, there are few who can
see the beautiful darkness.
And when the flare journeys
from flickering to fading mode,
it discovers a dream and a tender idea.

What's that dream or big bang idea ?

In the temporal riches of life, still someone keeps enunciating 'jalta hi jaye'. I just love that attitude.

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-02-24T22:24:00.004+05:30

A Break from Monotony, Athirapally Waterfalls...

At last, I am on a train to Kerala, where I am heading to attend a marriage function of one of my friends. During the long night journey, traveling in a second class sleeper compartment, of the Indian Railways, sleep is difficult to procure. I sit by the window, and just take count of the invisible sights in the dark that pass by as the train races. In the mean while, I didn't realize and fell asleep. The mild rain that poured through the window railings provided the natural coolness.

Finally at around 4 A.M. early morning, the train reaches, Thrissur a town in the coastal state of Kerala. From the station, I ply on a local bus to reach another small town Chalakudy. The early morning freshness, and the luxuriant tropical scenery which unfolds as the bus speeds towards the destination, affords me perpetual delight. The sight of houses, palisaded by shady coconut trees, and plantain trees is in sharp contrast to the apartments that I see in my daily life where greenery in such expanse is a rare sight.

At around 8 A.M., after having my breakfast(idli, vada, sambar and coffee), I head towards Athirapally Waterfalls, located at the entrance to Sholayar ranges which is about 35 kms from Chalakudy. The journey to this place, traversing curvy tracks, throws some spectacular views of the valley, intertwined with lush green forest cover of Western Ghats and sizzling silver cascades. Though, I learnt from the locals that monsoon is the best time, to be here, but still this off-season visit was gratifying.

Once you reach the spot, one can see the source of the waterfall, before it plunges down with vigor.

To enjoy the waterfall at its very best, I walked across the riparian forests to reach the foot of the falls with my minimum mountaineering skills. The journey was a bit tiring, but the pleasant breeze revived me. As I stopped at regular intervals, I was able to locate some forest houses amidst the greenery which are maintained by the tourist department to attract visitors.

The breeze stirs a row of trees which line the entire stretch from the top till the foot of the waterfall. The farther I walk down, the more incredible sights opens up before me.

The ground around is covered with virgin bush, sometimes thickly overgrown. The cacophony of birds chirping in the woods gets diluted as I descend further down only to hear the roaring sound of the water as it dips with force. The enduring landscape reveals nature in all her own raw grandeur. There were families of grey and brown monkeys around jumping across the clumps of trees and garden chameleons too.

There were hardly any people at the foot of the fall, though there were some security men guarding this area. The air was covered in mist and visibility was hindered to take many photographs, as the tiny droplets carried by the wind just settled on the lens of my camera. I settle under a rock, and watch this inexplicable performance of the nature as the water falls down this 150 feet cliff, with a standing puzzle. (Please be careful, if you go down, as the area is bit slippery and the best way to be here is bare foot.)

The quite ripple of the waves came to my ears. It is a pleasant to catch the tang of a faint breeze which blows and carries with it tiny droplets, as if someone is using a water sprayer. The waves in force appear like liquid sapphire.

After spending a couple of hours near the base of the fall, I made my return trip to reach the top again, traversing the same path that I followed for downhill trek. Once I settle near the top, I was completely exhausted and was hankering for some water or a cool drink. There was a humble soul who was busy constructing, a roof with leaves, who rushed down, seeing a visitor near his make-shift stall and offered me two tender coconuts.

After I feel a bit energetic, after sipping in two tender coconuts, I board the bus that would take me back to Chalakudy. As the bus journeys through the valley, the hills vanish behind in the curtains of the forest. The sound of the water pouring, gurgling and trickling diminishes and all I can see from the window of the bus, are few streams which run brown as Indian Railways tea.

Places, people, insights, colors and above all experiences. All these sum up what traveling is all about, don't you feel so?

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-02-19T22:41:00.008+05:30

Happy, happier, happiest...

This Sunday, CBS news had an interesting, report that highlights an engrossing story about the happiest country in the world. This story is covered in an exhaustive fashion in Yahoo! News 60 Minutes page.

Now if you look at it, happiness is by itself very subjective and can have varied interpretations. What, I could make from the video is that the study focused on life satisfaction and gratification rather than short-lived emotional states. There are many linking tags if one starts to bisect and analyze this issue.

Is happiness linked with a capitalistic system? Some may agree to this and some may not. Just take any simple family, what defines happiness for the individuals differs across age group. But a totality of all these separate fixtures when assembled together makes a content society.

Indirectly, each and every facet of happiness, apart from the emotional state of an individual is softly coupled to many external factors. Economics, politics, education system, business, infrastructure, weather conditions, social system, etc are all the bricks in the wall that contribute to a perfectly cemented society. Each nation has its share of problems and triumphs, but in this traffic of highs and lows, ups and downs, any country that has a majority of its population that is contented would definitely accelerate towards the north in any graph. I guess that's what has set Denmark, apart and this year again it is ranked as the happiest nation in the globe.

Check this video and you can know the underlying chords that contributed to this. It also provides lots of interesting theories as to why people are so content in a land that doesn't have excellent weather, has delays in its public transportations, pays one of the highest taxes in the world and has many other fractures too.

Video 1 is here.

Video 2 is here.

In this snippet, one can also see how strong the social 'safety net' meaning free education, free hospital care, state-sponsored pension plan and unemployment checks, etc is in Denmark. Also a well-regarded Harvard psychology professor seeks to find answers to a very fundamental question: Why Americans are so unhappy today and what can be done to get happier?

In the words of Tal Ben-Shahar, the Harvard psychology professor, we just expect too much: In America, part of the ethos, part of the American dream, is that more is better, and the more is better usually applies to the material realm. And that doesn't pan out, that doesn't work, it doesn't make us happier...It is about having realistic expectations. It's... it's about not trying to fit in more...more than we can handle. We can't handle it all, we can't have it all, but we can have a lot.

Well, if you ask me these are some of the cardinal issues that plague many people, especially those that live in cities and metropolis around the globe and the solutions are also quite universal in nature, its not region/country specific. One of the key points that you can find in Denmark's key to happiness is lowered and realistic expectations.

Khush raho yaar :)

Keep reading and remain connected.

2008-02-17T15:56:00.000+05:30

Have you been here ?...

A couple of days back, BD had chronicled his experience of having dosa with his family at a classy restaurant in Lucknow. (This part is a bit off-track from the post and I learnt about this from a recent read, 'Umrao Jan Ada' by Mirza Hadi Ruswa. Asaf-ud Daula, the successor to Shuja-ud Daula had moved the capital to a site on the river Gomti which according to some was known as Lakshman Tila meaning 'The Mound of Lakshman', the younger brother of Lord Rama. With time, the Sanskrit name Lakshman developed into Lakhnau, spelt in English as Lucknow. So that's the genesis of the name of a colorful city, Lucknow.)

Smallsquirrel posted a comment on BD's yummylicous post:

I must say, though, that I prefer my dosas from the itty bitty darshini down the street, eaten standing next to my neighbors and assorted rickshaw wallahs, and washing it all down with a cup of steaming filter coffee (which only tastes good when made from packet milk and not that hyper-pasteurized stuff in tetrapacks found at five star joints).

I say this not because I scoff at 5 star hotels (who does not love a bit of luxury) but because the dosas at these places are always a lot nicer somehow... the potato palya is spicier, the chutney is more flavorful, the dosa more crisp...

don't you think?

Yes, I do. One needs to be in a place commonly known as V.V. Puram, Food Street or V.B. Bakery Road to Bangaloreans, a street that has its own tenuities, and its own history. In a city, which is today witnessing a growth rate of close to 10% and is home to almost all global brands even in the food segment, this street still offers something that sets one salivating.

Come twilight, the air is charged with the scent of jasmine, unnoticeably blended with the fragrance of jalebis, pav bhaji, akki roti, masala dosa, gulab jamoon, potato bonda, American baby corn and a host of other mouth watery eatables.

The akki roti served with a spoonful of butter on top along with different types of chutneys such as coconut, onion, and chilli is a must eat for any visitor. There are a number of dosa joints that dot this 150 meter long street and the variety of dosas range from the simple plain dosa to the foot-long paper masala dosa served with fresh coconut and onion chutneys. The most striking feature is there is no sitting arrangement and in most places, paper cones, paper plates or plantain leaves are used to serve food. There is never any wastage and invariably every bit is literally licked till the last morsel. Also, the food stall owner makes food right in front of you, typifying the 'WYSIWYG' format (what-you-see-is-what-you-get). I found that these chaps do not compromise on quality as most of the stall owners of dosa were using 'Nandini' ghee, (the brand/make that is used in most households in Bangalore) to embrocate the dosa.

How can you be here and miss the bondas, which are generally made of potato, chilli, capsicum, and banana. One can see, hear, and smell whatever was happening in the kitchen, wherefrom a constant traffic of trays loaded with garam garam jalebis passed on to the front counter.

As long as there is frying, serving, and sizzling noise in the kitchen, with trays and plates leaping across counters and various hands, it means the the action is on. The street starts welcoming the clientele at around 6:30 P.M and the process continues till 10:30 P.M.

The taste of each of these edibles is difficult to reproduce at home. The reason for this is simple, for ages, the deft and magical fingers of these vendors have mastered the art of deciding the quantity of salt, or ghee or for that matter any ingredient that must be added to satisfy their customers, the simplest way. The skill and precision with which the Puran Poli, a sweetened stuffed chapatti is fried on a hot tawa (frying pan), then taking the Poli out from the pan at the right moment, and serving with a dollop of ghee is not only a spectacle to watch but also a teaser to taste buds.

But places like these are slowly fading and evanescing. Maybe this is because the present young generation’s tastes are changing and everyone wants to identify oneself with the mall culture that is dispersing at a fast pace. But trust me, if you want something simple and want to see the colors of life, places like Food Street at V.V.Puram are a must to visit. Parking becomes a bit painstaking during the rush hours of business, but it's manageable. Also make sure that you have lot of denomination of Rs.5 and Rs.10 in your wallet when you visit this place. Why do I say so? Be there and you can know it yourself.

This place is very near to Lal Bagh West Gate.

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(Note: That the gentleman who prepared the foot-long dosa that you see in the pic, didn't charge me a single penny because he liked the pic that I took for him. I requested him and told him that this was not fair as he deserved his due, but he smiled and asked if he could meddle with my camera for a while. So this post is for that humble soul.)

2008-02-17T14:40:00.004+05:30

Mix and Match...

What happens when Sawaariya dude meets Om Shanti Om babe ?

The answer is simple : You get a bottle of Pepsi. You don't believe me, check this, the first campaign this year from the house of Pepsi.

If you notice, there is someone who has turned from unckeeel to bhaiya. Now this isn't so difficult. Guess who ?

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