tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69662572024-03-14T06:28:39.642+05:30My musings, opinions and what have youAdding to the noise.Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.comBlogger406125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-21550554176254130672011-11-20T23:23:00.001+05:302011-11-20T23:23:15.070+05:30Buy it, bag it, use it, trash it<p>Most places in India now have an outright ban on very thin plastic bags and require stores to charge for any plastic carry bags they hand out to customers. I think this is a good move for the environment in general, and most definitely a fine way to promote reuse. </p> <p>Economics indicate that explicitly charging customers, even a small amount (like Re.1 to Rs. 3 per bag based on size, which seems to be the common going rate) makes customers that much more conscious, making them refuse bags for small purchases, bring their own bags and be more amenable to stuffing more items in a lesser number of bags. </p> <p>This bag charge is manna for retailers – it allows them to charge for what was previously an overhead, and if customers bring their own bags, even better: no expense at all. But I haven’t observed any of the big grocery retailers change their policies or processes to *reduce* usage of plastic in any visible way. After all, the bags we carry out the groceries in aren’t the only plastic bags we carry. Most produce is carried out by people in (smaller, transparent) plastic bags too. </p> <p>But the fact is, it isn’t strictly necessary for dry produce (potatoes, onions, most fruits) to be bought this way. All of it can go into one big cloth bag and taken home. That’s what we did at the <em>subzi mandi</em> before all this fancy corporate retail boom anyway.</p> <p>However, you can’t just throw a few bananas and a couple of apples into your shopping cart and waltz over to the express checkout. No siree, not in India. Instead of consolidating the weighing and scanning at one place at checkout, you have to do this odd double dance: you put all your produce items in transparent plastic bags and take them to a weighing station, where an attendant weighs each item and seals the bag with a bar code sticker. Then the check-out cashier scans these barcodes and rings you up.</p> <p>I’m still confused. Does this comply with the law or not? I think it does, in the letter of the law. However, in spirit, it most definitely doesn’t. I, like many other people, do not want to carry fruits like bananas or apples or a few potatoes in a separate sealed plastic bag only to go home, open the bag and store them in a fruit bowl or a pantry shelf. The bags are effectively useless for me, and the only reason I’m forced to use them is the process some of these stores have imposed. The effective usefulness of the bag is 10 minutes: from weighing station to checkout counter.</p> <p>At first, I thought it may be a cost concern, that maybe the weighing system is more expensive, or maybe weighing + scanning takes longer, causing line backups. But I find that hard to believe, since there are other stores where weighing at checkout time seems to work fine. Line backups are mostly due to inefficient systems and unskilled cashiers anyway.</p> <p>I like to give these system designers the benefit of the doubt, but sometimes only the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obelix">Obelix</a> response seems to make sense. These Romans <strong>are</strong> crazy!</p> Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-39496655299033370202011-11-13T22:54:00.001+05:302011-11-13T22:54:56.639+05:30The Bell Curve of Apathy<p>An interesting sidelight to my <a href="http://ajayvb.blogspot.com/2011/11/customer-disservice.html">previous post</a> on poor customer service in India.</p> <p>Among places where service is key, restaurants rank quite high up (next only to airlines and hotels), and this problem of indifferent customer service is quite acute there, resulting in what I call “The Bell Curve of Apathy” for restaurants: </p> <p><strong>Service staff apathy, plotted against price, follows a Bell curve. </strong></p> <p>You eat at cheap Udipis and the random “Restaurants named Sagar” around Bangalore* and the service is remarkably good. Agreed, your expectations may be lower. But the tables and plates are clean, everything on the menu is mostly available. You are served water quickly, and the glass is unobtrusively replenished before it’s ever empty. Special orders are never a serious constraint. Catching a waiter’s eye for a quick follow-up order isn’t hard.</p> <p>As you move up the chain to the middle range (say, between Rs. 250-500 a pop in Bangalore), things actually start degrading. Again, I wonder if it’s adopting western models which causes this. After you’re seated, since this is a “sophisticated” place, no one shows up for a while. Then someone drops off menus and disappears. You’re now 10 minutes in, coming out of fairly warm weather, and no one’s asked you about water/drinks yet. This is around the time I start missing those Udipis where they’ll plonk down a steel glass with water within a minute of your taking a seat.</p> <p>Remarkably for a business which makes its best margins on drinks, alcoholic or otherwise, this pattern persists through the meal. You are asked if you want bottled water, but when the meal is ending, you’re never asked if you’d like another bottle, though the three bottles on the table are all empty. If you order a juice or a milkshake or a cocktail, no one ever asks if you want a refill. I’ve rarely had a waiter swing by mid-meal to check on the food, and yes, this is becoming a recurring theme now, top up my water glass.</p> <p>Once you move up the price bracket though, these problems mostly go away. I’ve been impressed with the top-notch service in the expensive restaurants I’ve been to. I guess it’s true then. The rich are not like you and me. They’re treated better, so who would disagree?</p> <p><em>*Bangalore has a remarkably high number of restaurants named Shanthi Sagar, Sukh Sagar or variants thereof. My guess is that some of these are part of a local chain.</em></p> Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-79949391112794293862011-11-13T01:07:00.001+05:302011-11-13T01:07:36.548+05:30Customer Disservice<p>The one thing that any returnee expat will invariably encounter is the abysmal quality of customer service on offer in India.  </p> <p>I’m not what you’d call an unreasonable customer. My expectations are simple: competence, and “do what you say you will”. Yet, notable exceptions aside (Citibank, Tata Sky), no one seems capable of getting the simplest things right. </p> <p>I’m not the only one seeing this. I’ve had other people, both expats and otherwise, say the same thing. But there’s also this “whatodo, it’s like this only” attitude, especially since there’s really no choice. It’s been a recurring theme in my discussions about my “India Experience”. </p> <p>I think the reason that it especially gets to us returnees is simple: you are used to better, and importantly, this is not something that you can be prepared for. You gear yourself for the traffic, the noise, the heat, even “IST”. Those are things that you were accustomed to when you left, albeit at a different scale. Those are supposedly the “India challenges” you were expected to negotiate on returning.</p> <p>But in the interregnum between my flight out almost a decade back and my return last year, urban India’s retail and service environment has undergone a transformation. The arrival of corporate entities has changed buying patterns in all sorts of categories. From daily staples to home appliances to cable TV, you are probably talking to a “customer service representative”. He’s likely employed by a franchisee who owns multiple such stores across the city.</p> <p>What this means simply is that there’s no “skin in the game” for anyone serving you anymore. Earlier, buying something meant going to a store that was likely manned by the family owning it. If a promise (home delivery, setup, callback when the item was in stock) was made, it was made by someone who had a direct financial stake in your satisfaction and an outcome that made you a repeat customer. If it wasn’t a family member, the person helping you was still competent since he’d probably been with the business for years. </p> <p>This isn’t some level of nostalgia: go to old school bookstores like the ones in Appa Balwant Chowk in Pune, or the electronics market around S.P. Road in Bangalore, or (personal favorite) Blossom Books in Bangalore. You still have competent staff who understand their inventory, and are invested in trying to make you happy.</p> <p>The new lot are making up numbers. They are impossibly young most of the time, probably finishing up college and earning some dough on the side. </p> <p>They are more than happy to make you a promise to close a sale, but at some point, the system takes it out of their hands, and the guy in charge of delivery doesn’t care for the ‘special instruction’ that helped seal the deal. The customer service guy on the phone is probably in a call center in Gurgaon, so trying to close the loop on a sale with the people who initiated it is well nigh impossible. You are now a service request in a queue, a football bouncing across CRM systems, routed through data centers managed by a third entity. </p> <p>Your ‘feedback’, commonly a phone call, or your reply to a text message follow-up goes into some kind of ether, and has no direct relation to the service you were provided. It’s not surprising, really: in a market with so much growth, customer service is an afterthought. Why bother? There are plenty more where we came from. </p> Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-68136092438540501392011-10-31T23:34:00.001+05:302011-10-31T23:34:02.798+05:30The secret life of the clergy<p><em></em></p> <p><em>Re-posting an earlier review of this film with edits as a submission for the <a href="http://wogma.com/article/count-down-being-5-part-2/">Reel-life Bloggers contest</a> run by the fine folks at </em><a href="http://wogma.com/"><em>wogma</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://reviewgang.com/"><em>reviewgang</em></a><em>.</em></p> <p><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001570/">Ed Norton</a>, as always, a prime pick. I tend to choose films by directors and not actors - Chris Nolan and Baz Luhrmann being directors whose works I enjoy, with Steven Spielberg and Cameron Crowe high on the list too. Ed Norton's an exception. Primal Fear, Fight Club and The 25th Hour later, Ed Norton's a guy whose films you watch, simply because he's chosen them.</p> <p><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0171433/">Keeping the Faith</a> was similarly recommended. Picking up the DVD, I realized that he's directed the movie as well. This gets better.</p> <p>The premise is simple. Two guys. One girl. They've been friends forever. She left when they were in eighth grade and went to the other coast. Now she's back. She's beautiful, smart, the kind they both fall for.So, a love triangle, right?</p> <p>Not completely. He's a priest. Catholic at that. His best friend's a Rabbi. She's not Jewish - complications all around. He wants to tell her. His friend already has. She likes him (the Rabbi, that is) as well. Problem: He cannot see her and continue his relationship with his mother or the Synagogue. Ah, the tangled webs we weave.</p> <p>For me, the film was a revelation in some ways. It showed a couple of clergymen of two of America's most prominent religions as regular guys. They wear shades, play basketball, and yes, occasionally swear too. Seeing them out of their robes was a surprise by itself. (I don't know, imagining our batt-ru in a leather jacket doesn't quite gel).</p> <p>They falter, as all humans do, and find the faith (in themselves and those around them) to carry on. The film is reasonably well written, offering all three - Ed Norton (the priest), Ben Stiller (the Rabbi) and Jenna Elfman enough to do. Ed Norton as always lives the role, something he did frighteningly well in Primal Fear. Ben Stiller is subtler than some of his more recent roles, showing he's capable of better, and Dharma fits the role to a T.</p> <p>The whole love triangle thing gets a tad awkward at times, but nothing to kill the movie completely. Some laughs, some tears, a drunk scene, a showdown, a punch and all's well with the world again. I admit, I probably liked the film more than I should have but smart rom-coms are so hard to come by that good ones are worth the watch.</p> <p><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0171433/quotes">Everyone thinks his story is the one with a twist</a>.</p> Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-36558445130652774242011-10-31T22:47:00.001+05:302011-10-31T22:47:50.728+05:30On Rocky and the Underdog<p><em></em></p> <p><em>Re-posting an earlier review of this film with edits as a submission for the <a href="http://wogma.com/article/count-down-being-5-part-2/">Reel-life Bloggers contest</a> run by the fine folks at </em><a href="http://wogma.com/"><em>wogma</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://reviewgang.com/"><em>reviewgang</em></a><em>.</em></p> <p align="left"><strong>Spoiler alert: </strong> For someone who's not seen the movie and cares to not know the ending to a non-thriller with a non-Shyamalanesque twist, <strong>don’t read this post!</strong> </p> <p align="left"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075148/">Rocky</a> is one of cinema's big cliché movies. The story of the underdog who overcame the odds to become something bigger than himself. The backstory of the movie itself is similar, with Stallone pushing the script door-to-door, refusing to make the movie unless he got to be Rocky as well. The story to trump all stories, the movie won multiple Oscars, including Oscars for Best Film and Director, and nominations for Stallone for the screenplay and (gulp) for his acting. Rocky got so crazy that there were eventually five Rocky movies. Stallone went on to become a billionaire, giving us other classics like the Rambo series, The Expendables and some really bad acting.</p> <p align="left">When I first saw the movie, I was underwhelmed. There was a bit to the tale, but I didn't see much. One of the explanations that me and my friend (whom I saw the movie with) could muster for the success and resonance of the movie was that it was arguably a function of the times. The late 70s with a bad economy and general doom and gloom in the Carter years meant that the movie symbolized hope for the underdog in some ways. Maybe in the more prosperous '0s, that wasn't so true anymore, and we couldn't (and could never) 'get' the movie.</p> <p>I was wrong. I’ve caught parts of it on TV later, and as I think back to the movie now, it (the movie) makes more and more sense. Part of it is arguably that I've grown older and seen more of life since then. The character-building itself is one thing, but what holds the key to the film is the last, actual boxing match. The night before the match, Rocky <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075148/quotes">says</a> to Adrian, "Cause all I wanna do is go the distance."</p> <p>And go the distance he does. Even as Apollo pummels Rocky, he just keeps coming back, doesn't he? He really shows no sign of giving up. He does go the full 15 rounds to lose on points. What matters there is the fact that he goes the distance. Every blow that he gets, he manages to get up again, ready to fight.</p> <p>Like Simon and Garfunkel sing poignantly,(not about Rocky, though this could apply)</p> <p><em>In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade <br />And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down or cut him <br />’til he cried out in his anger and his shame <br />I am leaving, I am leaving, but the fighter still remains <br />Yes he still remains.</em></p> <p><em></em> <br />Hell, yeah. Rocky's my hero. Now, if only they hadn't made those sequels...</p> Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-4499941443420565242011-10-27T00:54:00.002+05:302011-10-27T00:59:04.403+05:30Celluloid City<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Bollywood films typically exist in some sort of never-land. This has been true from way back when. Even when Raj Kapoor’s films wanted to portray the struggles of the Everyman struggling to retain his soul in the Big, Bad City, the city itself was amorphous. A Bombay look-alike, but not quite the real thing. Clichéd stock shots of V.T. and the city’s Fort area were meant to depict the Metropolis in all its glory. <br />
And so it went. A lot of films from the 60s and 70s all the way through the 80s tend to repeat this theme. The reasons may have been varied – catering to an India-wide audience or maybe just the hassle of shooting on location. Stock shots, sound stages and compromises. It’s a time where it’s hard to remember mainstream films with a great sense of place. Unlike, say, New York in <em>Breakfast at Tiffany’s</em>, or the gritty city seen through new eyes in Scorsese’s and Woody Allen’s 70s masterworks, we did not have our own <em>filmi </em>City of Dreams, as it were.<br />
The first memory I have of a film with a more unique city view than most, is for some vague reason, <em>Chashme Baddoor</em>. Being shot in New Delhi gives the film a visual style that quite varies it from the smaller Amol Palekar films that are its genre and period brethren. Those films too were shot on location in Bombay – waiting at bus stops along Worli seemed a favorite past-time, but still, it all seems very generic.<br />
However, what really brought the power of stage-setting home for me personally was Ram Gopal Verma’s <em>Satya</em>. I somehow associate it with the city very strongly – location, sensibility, plotting (there’s a whole bit explaining the geographical distribution of territories between Bhau’s lieutenants). The ending in a very Mumbai milieu – the Ganapati <em>visarjan </em>at Chowpatty just drives the whole thing home: this is a <em>Bombay</em> (was it Mumbai already then?) gangster film.<br />
What has changed in the intervening 15 years? The multiplex boom does mean that there are diverse settings that film-makers can now explore. Be it the soul-sucking environs of an industrial town (Jamshedpur, <em>Udaan</em>) or interior Rajasthan (<em>Manorama: Six Feet Under</em>), it’s all game, if only the filmmaker is brave enough to reach for it. Even the quintessential Mumbai film has moved from a state of mind like in <em>Dil Chahta Hai</em> to films where there’s some level of effort to include non-cliched parts of the city(<em>Bluffmaster</em>, <em>Jaane Tu…</em>)<br />
However, the most remarkable trend I’ve noticed in the past few years has been the rise of the “Delhi film”. AG observed in a conversation just four or so years back that <em>Rang De Basanti</em> was the only real Delhi film we’d seen in years. But the past 3-4 years has seen the explosion of a variety of Delhi films, the likes of which Bombay/Mumbai never really saw. <em>Dev D</em>, <em>Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!</em>, <em>Delhi-6</em>, <em>Do Dooni Chaar, </em><em>Band Baaja Baaraat, Delhi Belly</em> all show the country’s capital from different eyes. The seedy underbelly of Paharganj contrasts with the tony wedding soirees of Sainik Farms in various ways, with detours through middle class neighborhoods along the way. <br />
Fittingly, over 50 years after <i>Yeh hai Bambai Meri Jaan</i>, Delhi got its own Bollywood anthem this year. <em>Gai kaat kalejaa</em> indeed.</div>Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-57819284913144276932011-09-02T17:08:00.000+05:302011-09-02T22:53:27.213+05:30Random Music Musings–The Return of the Blog<p><em>In fits and starts, I try. The drafts folder on my PC is testament to these efforts, but heck, this seemed like an easy way to get something up here after one previous attempt to restart this blog. Someone once said “Great artists ship”. So wannabe bloggers…tweet?</em></p> <p>-  It is not very often that chart-topping popularity and true quality meet in music, especially in that all-encompassing ‘pop’ category. However, Adele has managed just that, and how! <a href="http://www.amazon.com/21-Adele/dp/B004EBT5CU/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1314963309&sr=1-1">21</a> is a powerhouse album. It’s impressively mature, especially as a musical statement, drawing on the same neo-soul vibe that made Amy Winehouse’s short career. While the songwriting is frayed in places, you want to forgive her that. She is only 21, after all.  </p> <p>- Radiohead is one of my favorite bands, simply because of the amount of texture in their music and arrangements. However, one of the things that dawned on me recently was how dance-friendly some of their tracks can get. I was browsing in a bookstore this week, and found myself bobbing my head and tapping my feet to <a href="www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLVA7Ap1vkQ">Reckoner</a> from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rainbows-Radiohead/dp/B000YXMMAE">In Rainbows</a>. That rhythm section is to die for.</p> <p>- I’m quite annoyed by the constant sniping about lyrical quality in Hindi films today. While all the attention was paid to <em>Bhaag DK Bose</em> and <em>Character Dheela</em>, I wish there was more attention paid in media to the <em>good</em> songs and the people behind them. </p> <p>Except for a <a href="http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/art-culture/the-reluctant-songwriter">recent profile in Open</a><em></em>, I’ve seen no good profiles of Amitabh Bhattacharya, who in addition to doing <em>DK Bose </em>and <em>Character Dheela</em>, has also done pretty amazing “traditional” songwriting for <em>Udaan</em>, <em>I Am</em> and <em>No One Killed Jessica</em>. <em>Aitbaar</em> in NOKJ comes together in a way no song in any soundtrack this year has – the lyrics and music conveying anger, despair and a welter of complicated emotions in one explosive package.</p> <p>Previous music musings - <a href="http://ajayvb.blogspot.com/2005/06/random-music-musings.html">I</a>, <a href="http://ajayvb.blogspot.com/2005/10/random-music-musings-part-deux.html">II</a>, <a href="http://ajayvb.blogspot.com/2006/06/random-music-musings-iii-reruns-of.html">III</a>, <a href="http://ajayvb.blogspot.com/2006/09/random-music-musings-iv-its-called.html">IV</a> and <a href="http://ajayvb.blogspot.com/2008/03/random-musical-musings-v.html">V</a></p> Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-52976886650196146082011-03-21T17:26:00.001+05:302011-03-21T17:26:10.386+05:30Pass Me By<p>Wadi. Guntakal. Bhusawal. Mhow. All of these are places I’ve passed, either on road or by rail on my way to bigger destinations like New Delhi and Bangalore. </p> <p>These names evoke images of a slower, more relaxed time. You jumped off the train for a quick stretch of the limbs, maybe a quick cup of steaming hot <em>chai</em>. You looked in at the A.H.Wheeler, eyeing the Archers and Ludlums on sale, maybe picking up a magazine as consolation on the way back to the train. You had <em>pohe</em> at a roadside <em>dhaba</em> near Mhow and heard stories from more knowledgeable people on how it was a big military base. You wondered about the sudden explosion in hoardings related to <em>pareshani?</em> and advertisements for “Ashok Clinic” as the train hurtled northward passing Bhopal and Gwalior.</p> <p>All that is gone now, replaced by security checks at the swank Terminal 3 in Delhi and cups of Nescafe from a machine at Pune’s tiny Lohegaon airport. Getting from place A to B in India in under 3 hours is transformative. However, what of the romance that every Indian of a certain era attaches to rail travel and roadside <em>dhaba</em> food?</p> <p>It’s not all bad. Productive business dealings in distant cities can now end with you sleeping in your own bed. The bulk of short vacations need not be spent in trains or cramped bus seats, increasing your options and actual vacation time. </p> <p>This isn’t a lament of a tangible loss of some kind. One always has the choice of taking two extra days off work to make a journey by train instead of flying. However, what I do worry about is the loss of perspective. The rich have always been different from you and me, and now they (and this group does include me) needn’t even <em>see </em>the rest of this fine land.</p> <p>We finally have our own version of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyover_country">flyover country</a>.</p> Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-24906963656830675592011-03-10T12:02:00.001+05:302011-03-10T12:02:26.740+05:30Branded<p>World Cup 2011, ad-fest. Like clockwork, at the end of the over, transmission shifts to an advertisement. Shah Rukh Khan is on a living room couch with a girl half his age. Just as things are about to get interesting, a WWE-style wrestler jumps into the frame, followed by a couple of cricketers, and then a <em>saas-bahu</em> prototype. There’s a LCD TV mounted on the wall behind him. It’s an ad for the HD package of a DTH provider, DishTV.</p> <p>Wait, rewind that. (I don’t have a DVR, but bear with me here). Didn’t you just see Shah Rukh Khan on TV a few days back endorsing the Airtel phone network? Doesn’t Airtel also have its own DTH service? He’s endorsing two <em>competing</em> brands?</p> <p><em><strong>So</strong></em>, you say? What’s wrong with him earning a bit of money on the side for his star power? Oh, none, I say. More power to him. However, I’ve already made the SRK-AirTel connection in my mind, so I unconsciously associate Airtel DTH with him. Dish is getting the short end of the stick. I’ve also linked A.R. Rahman to Airtel, Junior Bachchan  to Idea Cellular, and of course, Saif Ali Khan to some brand of <em>banians (</em>Amul Macho<em>, </em>really?) </p> <p>Which brings me to my second point. I’m all for Saif Ali Khan in <em>banians</em> and a luscious Katrina Kaif posing with juicy mangoes. But just because you can do it doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. For the celebrity, for the brand, or for the audience.  </p> <p>It should be straightforward to state what a brand stands for. And if we’re treating the celebrity as a brand, very few celebrities in India can claim to have that kind of consistency, especially when it comes to their endorsements. The <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKL254Y_jtc">Detroit ad for Chrysler with Eminem</a>, for instance, is a great example of how Eminem’s persona and his Detroit roots can tie in to a good story, enhancing the perception of both celebrity and brand.</p> <p>The only celebrity in India giving his endorsements some kind of thought is, of course, Aamir Khan. (He does march to his own drum-beat, doesn’t he?). After a moment’s thought, I can instantly say what his general endorsement philosophy is. He endorses mass-market brands that are affordable, but not necessarily cheap – Samsung, Titan, Tata Sky (and Coke). He has an instantly recognizable face, so he plays characters that tie back to a story the ad campaign is trying to tell. His series of advertisements for Coke were quite memorable, and the current Tata Sky <em>Bablu</em> series is another good ad series spread over multiple advertisements.</p> <p>I do wish he didn’t do the finger-wagging, funda-spouting bit in the Incredible India ads, but that, too ties back well with his on-screen persona. He does do a lot of that in films like <em>Taare Zameen Par</em> and <em>3 Idiots</em>. Though that is a story for another post.</p> Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-81160306512435305072011-03-01T22:34:00.001+05:302011-03-01T22:34:23.709+05:30Lost in Translation<p> </p> <p>While they say great films can truly transcend language, how do films cross this barrier when language is part of the deal? </p> <p>I’m thinking of this as I scan reviews for <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0964517/">The Fighter</a></em> released in India last week. I see a lot of Indian reviews dismiss it as another middling-to-good ‘boxing’ film. While I still haven’t seen it, I think that the most interesting thing about it is not the story but the performances (of course, 2 Oscars went to the supporting cast) and the portrayal of the boxer’s family from a working class neighborhood in Lowell, Massachusetts. </p> <p>What of their accents? Does the portrayal of the matriarch and the family ring true? Are these nuances lost on an Indian audience, or more precisely, on Indian reviewers? </p> <p>A sense of rootedness places films in context and can enhance your viewing experience. For instance, I can’t think of <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omkara_%28film%29">Omkara</a></em> without the rustic dialog, or <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081398/">Raging Bull</a></em> without Robert De Niro’s very New York twang. How much context do we lose while watching foreign films because we may have no way of having it? </p> Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-42225704838268508302011-02-18T22:59:00.003+05:302011-02-19T01:26:20.561+05:30Essential non-software books for the software professional<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
I somehow got into thinking about this topic recently. There are, I’m sure, a number of lists of essential software readings for the software professional. These include books like <i><a href="http://www.flipkart.com/code-complete-2-steve-mcconnel-book-8178530228?affid=ajayvbyaho">Code Complete</a></i>, <i><a href="http://www.flipkart.com/mythical-man-month-frederick-brooks-book-0201835959?affid=ajayvbyaho">The Mythical Man Month</a></i> and <i><a href="http://www.flipkart.com/art-computer-programming-volumes-boxed-book-0201485419?affid=ajayvbyaho">The Art of Computer Programming</a>. </i>A quick search found me this lovely link listing (gulp) a <a href="http://knol.google.com/k/top-100-best-software-engineering-books-ever#">hundred books</a>. I’ve read only ten of them.<br />
However, my pet grouse against fellow programmers is their singular vanity about how unique their profession is. (It’s my profession too, but I don’t have such illusions). Us programmers are like other humans(!) in many ways and the life lessons one learns (often the hard way) are similar. <br />
Keeping that in mind, I present my list of essential non-software books for a software professional. This is a fairly personal list, but these are books that have shaped my thinking and beliefs over the years, and I think they’d make a great addition to the thinking software professional’s library.<br />
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<i><a href="http://www.flipkart.com/surely-you-re-joking-mr-book-009917331x?affid=ajayvbyaho">Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman!</a></i> - I think this should be essential reading for everyone, and not just engineers. It captures the playfulness and never-ending curiosity that Feynman brought to his profession and life. I’ve written at length on this book <a href="http://ajayvb.blogspot.com/2008/02/renaissance-man.html">here</a>.<br />
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<i><a href="http://www.flipkart.com/better-atul-gawande-book-0143102567?affid=ajayvbyaho">Better</a> -</i> <a href="http://www.gawande.com/">Atul Gawande</a> is a very rare kind of writer: he manages to write about complicated topics (medicine, surgery, US healthcare policy) in a way that’s accessible and illuminating. Of the three books he’s written, <i>Better</i> remains my favorite. Gawande writes about performance in the medical profession from his vantage point as a surgeon and physician. Yet, he beautifully links the specific to the general, drawing out conclusions that are applicable to any person who’s trying to do better at her chosen profession/vocation. Again, a general read I’d recommend to anyone.<br />
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<i><a href="http://www.flipkart.com/outliers-malcolm-gladwell-story-success-book-0141036249?affid=ajayvbyaho">Outliers</a></i> – <a href="http://www.gladwell.com/">Malcolm Gladwell</a> gets a lot of flak, rightly or wrongly for his sometimes provocative theses. <i>The Tipping Point</i> was widely well-received when it came out and has been questioned since. I myself am a bit of fence-sitter on that book and I disliked his second effort, <i>Blink</i>. However, <i>Outliers</i> seemed to me like a much better work overall. In denying ‘genius’ as a pat explanation for all success, Gladwell gives a lot of credit to a combination of immense hard work and plain dumb luck. <br />
I find his conclusions reassuring and daunting. 10,000 hours at <i>anything, </i>even something you love seems like a lot of work. But when I’ve seen senior engineers at work knock a task out the park while I’m still processing it, it’s encouraging to think that with enough conscious hard work, I can aspire to that kind of expertise.<br />
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<a href="http://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture">The Last Lecture</a> – I cheat here, in that this is not a book. I found the video of Randy Pausch’s last lecture a much more satisfying view, and the book was mostly a rehash of a lot of the material with some supporting material and detail. The original Last Lecture (more <a href="http://ajayvb.blogspot.com/2008/06/zindagi-badi-honi-chahiye-lambi-nahin.html">here</a>), was pretty much perfect. It’s just over an hour, and if you haven’t, watch it already! <br />
Again, like Feynman’s book, it combines a certain audacity of thinking with playfulness and a sense of humor. Importantly, it’s a healthy dose of perspective on what truly matters. <br />
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<a href="http://www.flipkart.com/writing-stephen-king-memoir-craft-book-0743455967?affid=ajayvbyaho">On Writing</a> – Writing well is a craft software professionals ignore at their own peril. Writing cogently to make a point or to explain tough concepts is an art (see: Atul Gawande) and is an important part of professional growth. Stephen King does a great job of explaining his craft in this heart-warming book. Part memoir and part-how-to, it’s an entertaining and illuminating read. <br />
<br />
This list is pretty basic and I leave out other books that I love, focusing more on books that I feel matter in a professional context. List-making exercises are ongoing, and I have <a href="http://ajayvb.blogspot.com/2005/06/tags-gone-wild.html">this one</a> from a few years back. That list too will see additions (including a couple from up here), and yes, I now own over <a href="http://www.librarything.com/catalog/ajayvb">140 books</a>. <a href="http://ajayvb.blogspot.com/2006/03/hold-that-place.html">Book acquisitiveness</a> is a habit that I can’t help.<br />
</div>Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-53258372827500238952011-02-08T22:49:00.001+05:302011-02-08T22:49:53.448+05:30Bank logo Blues<p> </p> <p><em>That’s why they call it the Rich Kid Blues… </em></p> <blockquote> <p><em>                                               - The Raconteurs, “Rich Kid Blues”</em></p> </blockquote> <p>I remarked to AG how I liked Café Coffee Day’s logo. The distinctive purple, red and white just stands out, especially in chaotic cityscapes like in India. Barista’s muted brown and orange/earth tones set the tone for the kind of place it will probably be: upscale, a tad quieter and ‘classier’ than the more mass-market Coffee Day.</p> <p>However, I notice that banks tend to be a quite boring with color choices. While ICICI Bank makes a splash with its orange hues and HSBC’s red is distinctive, blue seems like the dominant color of choice otherwise. There’s HDFC ( blue, red and white, very square design), SBI (blue, green and white), Citi (blue & white, nice, very modern fonts) and Federal Bank (white and blue). </p> <p>I wonder why that’s the case. Subliminal reinforcement of values of solidity and dependability?</p> Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-22779220934825287722011-02-01T17:39:00.001+05:302011-02-01T17:39:02.074+05:30Alan Moore on the Emergency<p><em>Thoughts on Vishwajyoti Ghosh’s <strong><a href="http://www.flipkart.com/delhi-calm-vishwajyoti-ghosh-book-8172239394">Delhi Calm</a></strong></em></p> <p>You expect book titles to be nouns. “Midnight’s Children”, “Salmon Fishing in Yemen”, or “Reading Lolita in Tehran” all evoke things, or actions. “Delhi Calm”, however, doesn’t fit the bill. Trying to make sense of the title (the Calm of Delhi?) takes its own time, until you realize that it’s ripped from a newspaper headline during the Emergency in 1975. (“Delhi Calm as X happens.”)</p> <p>As graphic novels go, this one is gorgeous. The visual style is distinctive and the dull browns and earth tones perfectly convey the era of fear, uncertainty and doubt that the Emergency was. </p> <p>The narrative, ostensibly revolving around three idealistic Left-leaning friends during the Emergency is just a front. It cleverly places the era in a context, allowing Ghosh to play freely with, and make fun of the age’s dark realities and absurdities. The infamous sterilization drives, the Orwellian propaganda and a brazen power grab by India’s first political family all make great fodder for Ghosh’s inventive style. However, the story also harks back to a more idealistic time, when universities were alive with the sound of debate, and youthful idealism wasn’t in as much short supply as it now seems to be.</p> <p>Comparisons to Alan Moore’s <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen">Watchmen</a></em> wouldn’t be unfair. While the thematic content is obviously different, just as in <em>Watchmen</em>, Ghosh pushes the graphic novel medium to the fullest. Asides like news articles, hagiographical Films Division-style video profiles of ‘Moon’ (the leader based on Indira Gandhi) and her son, quotes and snippets of poetry pepper the narrative, painting a fraught and claustrophobic portrait of the times. It’s a time underrepresented in Indian popular culture (no books that I know of, and the only film that comes to mind is <em><a href="http://ajayvb.blogspot.com/2005/06/so-agreeing-with-ramanand-and-george.html">Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi</a></em>), and this book paints an unforgiving picture of Indian democracy’s darkest hours. This is a story that needed to be told, and by telling it well, Ghosh brings it alive for a generation that wasn’t even born then.</p> <p>The publication of Indian books in styles other than The Great Indian Novel or The Populist Bestseller is itself encouraging, and though it’s still early days, the quality (both of the art and writing) of this book bode well for the graphic novel form in India. </p> Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-81428623900044312592011-01-26T00:13:00.001+05:302011-01-26T00:13:33.370+05:30On your marks<p><Is this thing on?></p> <p>Let’s get this (re)started.</p> Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-64115135388462772992010-05-07T09:33:00.001+05:302010-05-07T09:33:24.293+05:30Maps, not timetables<p>Stephen Covey says that people should lead their lives by maps, and not timetables. Though the analogy isn’t perfect, it did come to mind when I read of  weeds resistant to herbicides like Roundup <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/business/energy-environment/04weed.html">in the New York Times</a> .</p> <p>I wonder at what point did big farmers lose track of the fact that their primary purpose is producing food, and not producing X tons of soy/corn/whatever. When you’re reducing what you’re doing to a set of pure numbers and quarterly goals without any underlying purpose or mission, the danger of unintended consequences is much higher. Where’s your map telling you where you want to be headed?</p> Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-65340039559371546502010-04-23T06:07:00.001+05:302010-04-23T06:07:31.184+05:30<p> </p> <p>In a corporate environment, competence counts for a lot. I was at a party once with some people at work, and Z (who had had a bit too much to drink, I must add)  said about J “He knows his shit. And when you say that about someone, that’s a great compliment to give, you know, that he knows his shit?” Number of cocktails inside Z aside, point noted. Competence matters.</p> <p>But in the public sphere, it’s apparently OK to be a complete dimwit. I’ve been following the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/opinion/11rich.html">depositions</a> of Greenspan, Robert Rubin and the good folks at various multiple-fancy-named institutions on Wall Street ( Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley et al), and everyone’s saying this about the crisis: No one saw it coming. </p> <p>Seriously? I’d like to see a CEO make that argument in a closed-door board meeting.</p> <p>I shudder to think that these jokers hold the keys to the world’s largest economy. I don’t know which is worse: that they were incompetent enough to not understand that this was a train hurtling out of control, or that they are lying.</p> Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-2499822730756106392010-04-04T06:25:00.001+05:302010-04-06T01:54:27.934+05:30On the Radio<p>There are programs, and people who are made for a medium. For instance, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Scorsese">Scorsese</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Spielberg">Spielberg</a> are cinema people, period. They may be great storytellers, but I don’t see them achieving greatness as, say, theater directors. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joss_Whedon">Joss Whedon</a> (<em>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</em>, <em>Angel</em>, <em>Firefly</em>) is the quintessential television guy: his best work comes when he’s constrained by the hour-long format and he has the luxury of a full season or two to build character arcs. </p> <p>In a similar way, Ira Glass and <em><a href="http://www.thislife.org/">This American Life</a></em> to me embody radio. The lack of visuals and the lo-fi audio are limitations the TAL team seems to revel in. </p> <p>Not all radio shows feel that way. Even the good ones. NPR shows like <em><a href="http://waitwait.npr.org">Wait, wait, don’t tell me</a></em> and <em><a href="http://www.saysyou.net/">Says you</a>,</em> I see them working as TV game shows or live acts of some kind. </p> <p>But “This American Life” is pure radio (though, ironically, it had an award-winning two-season run as a TV series). The connection is direct and visceral: you and that voice on your radio. Technique goes a long way in making that work: a ‘sticky’ radio experience is dependent on atmosphere. As Ira Glass himself detailed in an illuminating talk on stage last year, great production and background music help immensely in making stories that stick. While listening to TAL, there are times when I’m absolutely riveted, and a break in the proceedings seems intrusive.  </p> <p>Those <a href="http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/driveway/">driveway moments</a> take hard work. </p> Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-85332317315714783542010-03-23T10:37:00.001+05:302010-03-23T10:37:57.402+05:30Reading Pico Iyer in India<p>The day after I landed in Mumbai on vacation, I started reading Pico Iyer’s <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tropical-Classical-Essays-Several-Directions/dp/0679776109">Tropical Classical</a></em>. Pico Iyer’s one of my favorite writers of any kind now. He is ostensibly a travel writer. However, his writing resonates as not just a chronicle of new places, sights and sounds, but of journeys within. </p> <p>But the problem is, reading Pico Iyer while traveling yourself doesn’t seem to work. India is home, but it’s also a journey of sorts, as every trip here is an exercise in melding the familiar with the unfamiliar. </p> <p>Going to a completely new place is one thing. Going to a place that’s at once familiar (and holds memories) and seeing it changed in 18 months to something that’s different (though not different enough) is disorienting. It’s disorienting enough that reading of religiosity in Ethiopia or tango in Buenos Aires seems just redundant.</p> <p>Finally, I just gave up. Reading Gurcharan Das’ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Paradigm-Gurcharan-Das/dp/014302910X">The Elephant Paradigm</a> seemed more appropriate.</p> Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-85410079928027629342010-01-20T12:08:00.001+05:302010-01-20T12:09:00.032+05:30Small Pleasures<p>There’s a tendency to want every media experience to be extra-ordinary. Every album should be <em>Sgt. Pepper’s</em>, every film should be a <em>Sholay </em>and every TV series should be a Battlestar Galactica. </p> <p>However, in the timeline between Chris Nolan, Radiohead and Joss Whedon, there lurk lovely little gems. They aren’t masterpieces or classics, but they have their own special place. They light up your life in small ways at unexpected corners. They never change your life, but they definitely make it less burdensome to live on a day-to-day basis. </p> <p>I remember making this remark about <em>Kaminey</em> on Twitter (on why it was unfair to burden the maker of Omkara and Maqbool with so many expectations) . “It’s a small film with smaller pleasures.” And I’d definitely apply that to these films/TV series.</p> <p>As I’ve shifted my TV viewing away from ‘live’ TV to more and more shows on DVD and streaming via Netflix, I’m encountering a lot of these. It’s been a lot of fun and a million times better than watching another rerun on TV. </p> Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-75287100588898700832009-12-31T02:22:00.001+05:302009-12-31T02:22:51.853+05:30Inside my comfort zone<p>In <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1229360/">It Might Get Loud</a>, Jack White makes a remark that stuck. To paraphrase, he states that great art comes from emotional conflict. He talks about how he has to stop himself from getting comfortable and take himself to a hard place emotionally, because that’s the only place from where his creativity flows.</p> <p>As I look at the frequency of posts on this blog go down, I wonder about that more and more. This blog isn’t high art, and I’m not <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_White">Jack White</a>. However, writing here requires a level of ardor that I don’t feel that often anymore. I’ve been in a number of situations this year that would have me mad, or angry or happy and pages of (bad) musings would’ve come out of it. But not anymore. So this blog sits, forlorn.</p> <p>This emotional settling down isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as I was too excitable for my own good in the past. But I worry about crossing over and becoming blasé. The world is a beautiful place and there’s lots to love and be excited about here. It’s just that a lot of things don’t seem  as blog-worthy anymore. In addition, tidbits, random insights and link-love have passed over to <a href="http://www.twitter.com/ajayvb">Twitter</a>.  </p> <p>As the zeros draw to a close, I don’t fret about the future of this blog. It has its place and its pleasures. It’s just that I (or you, dear reader) will partake of it less frequently than before.</p> Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-6399320450018890492009-11-20T00:44:00.001+05:302009-11-20T00:44:09.090+05:30Punching at the Sun<p>I particularly enjoyed reading Jim Collins’ two management classics <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Companies-Leap-Others/dp/0066620996">Good to Great</a></em> and <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Built-Last-Successful-Visionary-Companies/dp/0887307396">Built to Last</a></em>. One of my favorite parts in <em>Good to Great</em> is the window vs. mirror paradigm used by successful CEOs to describe success and failure.</p> <p>Put simply, when successful, CEOs of great companies tended to use the ‘window’ paradigm – they say things like “I got lucky, the economy turned around at the right time” or “I have a great management team” – statements that deflected credit for the success away from them as individuals to external factors beyond their control i.e. outside their ‘window’.</p> <p>In contrast, they used the ‘mirror’ unsparingly in times of failure. Every failure of the company finally rested at their feet. It was their fault that they didn’t judge the economy slowdown, or that they let costs get out of hand. They held the mirror, where every problem was because of a failure on their part.</p> <p>By these standards, there isn’t much hope for Wall Street. This President on the other hand, generally comes through as being quite the ‘Great’ CEO.</p> <p>However, where I find this analogy most interesting overall was in terms of how you look back at life. I was having a conversation with SK about an incident a couple of years back, and it was interesting how I saw it differently from him. As a third-party bystander, he didn’t see it as being my fault. </p> <p>However, in my head I could see a million different places where I could’ve done things differently, and exhibited better judgment. May I have those decision points back and do the right thing this time around please? But then, real life offers you no do-overs.</p> <p>Every day, you face small and big hassles and crises. I could be the ‘window’, blaming the world for my problems and existential angst that crops up occasionally. But the ‘mirror’ seems like a better thing to hang on the walls of your life-abode.</p> <p><em>I’m normally not given to this much navel-gazing, but this seems to be all that’s flowing from my keyboard, so that’s the way it goes.</em></p> Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-1367754147045530912009-10-24T23:36:00.003+05:302009-10-26T04:25:23.190+05:30Right-ward pacing<p>I play softball at work with my co-workers. Our in-field is really really good. We have great people at first base, third base and shortstop positions. </p><p>I haven’t really learnt softball/baseball as properly as some of these guys did, so I observe their technique with great interest. Our shortstop (let’s call him T) throws the ball in a very specific manner. He picks up the ball or catches it off the bounce, gets into position and then <em>pauses </em>for maybe half a second<em>. </em>Then he lets the ball go to first/third base depending on what’s necessary.</p><p>That stop is key. He could, like a lot of people I’ve seen, release the ball as soon as it hits his hands. But he stops, makes sure his body and arm are in perfect position and then positively rockets the ball to the right player (I did say our in-field is good). The half-second margin he gives himself adds a lot of things: it ensures his body and arm are in position, he has a clear assessment of where he has to throw the ball to be most effective, guarantees the accuracy of his throw and prevents injuries. In all likelihood, he more than regains the time lost during the pause through the speed of his eventual throw, since he’s never in a suboptimal position while throwing. </p><p>As we navigate our way through this wired, ever-connected, <em>faster! faster!</em> world, this is a parallel I think about a lot. I see people all around me with the dial set to 11, furiously multitasking. Updating Facebook status at concert? Check. Tweeting while watching a movie? Check. Email while hanging out with friends (in lieu of real conversation)? Check. Doing more! All the time! With less time!? Check.</p><p>While in and of themselves, I have no problem with any of these, the question I ask is: as we navigate through our lives, faster and faster, doing more and more things, are we still in sight of what matters? I can only speak for myself, but the more overscheduled I get, the more important it becomes for me to unplug and just <em>be</em>. I find something vital about disconnecting and letting my brain float. Long stretches of time, at home or outside where I have no clear agenda are worthwhile. I may read for a while, watch <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0907657/">Once</a> for the nth time or just make a cup of <em>chai</em> and stare out my balcony. </p><p>I saw an interesting talk at my workplace by Carl Honore, the author of <a href="http://www.carlhonore.com/?page_id=6">In Praise of Slowness</a> where he talks about doing things not too fast or too slow, but <em>at the right pace</em>. In part, it was a relief to see I wasn’t the only person who felt this way. </p><p>What does this mean for me apropos life on a day-to-day basis? Unplugging a bit more, saying ‘no’ occasionally to random stuff that doesn’t really make me happy anyway and less multi-tasking, so I’m engaged with what I am doing. Somehow right now this seems to mean shorter yet more productive workdays, a clearer and less stressed-out brain and a happier me. What’s to not like?</p><p>Edit: Fixed typo.</p>Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-52278733791958870462009-10-11T22:25:00.002+05:302009-10-11T22:27:12.797+05:30Stories on a trip<blockquote><p><em>Tell me a story<br />Sing me a song<br />Of life’s wars lost<br />And sundry battles won </em></p></blockquote><p>Tolstoy once wrote “<em>Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.</em>”</p><p>Traveling groups fall in similar categories. They are similar, yet different in their own ways.</p><p><em>Duomo di Milano, Milan</em></p><p>A precocious pre-teen is skipping up the steps, adult-chic glasses in hand. The father follows the mother. Disaffected teen brings up the rear, clicking away on a phone. She looks like she doesn’t want to be here. I wonder: What <em>happens</em> to children in their teens? </p><p>As we climb up to the roof, I see a young girl, presumably with her mother. Late teen, at most early twenties. I think it’s a mother-daughter bonding trip. AG thinks maybe the girl is here studying abroad, and her mother is here to visit her. I like this story better. They seem to be enjoying themselves. The bond they share is visible. I see them repeating this: trips together, new experiences, shared mother-daughter moments.</p><p><em>Passenger Train – Milan to Tirano</em></p><p>A father and young pre-teen boy. The father looks like a young <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000527/">Walter Matthau</a>. His beard already has a salt-and-pepper streak. Again, the father-son bond is apparent. The son holds on to his father’s hands occasionally. They share laughs, secret confidences I half-wish I could eavesdrop on. </p><p>It’s a passenger train so I’m guessing this is a day trip. I wonder where the mother is. Is it that the parents are separated, and the child is spending the day with a father sorely missed, a son served up as collateral damage for an unfortunate turn of events? </p><p>Maybe it’s just that the mother’s working and father-son managed to take off for a day to bond. I like this story better.</p><p>Every story is different in its own way.</p><p><em>This came together in a 15-minute writing burst on the Milan-Tirano train. Thanks to AG “Gullito” for one of the story ideas, for reading an initial draft and his stamp of approval.</em></p>Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-57358255374201105242009-09-29T03:03:00.004+05:302009-10-11T22:27:12.797+05:30<div align="left"><br /></div><p align="left"></p><div align="left"><br /></div><p align="left"><strong>Milan, Lombardy, Italy - 11th September 2009</strong><br /></p><blockquote><p align="left"><em>The more you know the less you feel<br />Some pray for others steal<br />Blessings not just for the ones who kneel, </em><em>luckily</em></p><p align="left"><br /></p><p align="left"><em>- U2, “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xQOb51qZ-c">City of Blinding Lights</a>”</em><br /></p></blockquote><p align="left">Looking at Renaissance-area churches and cathedrals , B and I were discussing this: “Were these built solely as religious places of worship or was there more at work here?”</p><p align="left">Cathedrals/churches were commissioned by the aristocracy of the time. They were designed and built by the artistic aristocracy of the time too. While these soaring steeples and tall spires are definitely meant to inspire awe and evoke the greatness of the Lord Almighty, one cannot but help feel that at some level these are manifestations of the ids of the people behind these – either the aristocrats bankrolling them, or the artists responsible for the architecture and the stunning beauty of these places. </p><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 205px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5386690153748852306" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5zIgWbT52lDagyn94834vdbwDthEHLIw26dbOdrT1Al4FGhzfZFM6DXjLb7E6Rk8sheGKXJ50mmy3xuyRwhbmcq8viFzkpQ-Nz0Wfm0GXpRBLo0ggla-nmg43EzM5RdcsMHApOQ/s320/053.JPG" /> <p align="center"><em>The Duomo in Milan</em><br /></p><p align="left">However, all of that is moot. The sense of grandeur and pure awe that one feels on viewing something like the Duomo in Milan make all this questioning of motivations academic. Evoking hushed reverence, the perfect grace of this place left me speechless. </p><p align="left">In the spirit of the beautiful symmetry these places exhibit, I close with the same U2 song I started with.</p><p align="left"><br /></p><em><blockquote><p align="left"><em>The more you see, the less you know<br />The more you find out<br />as you go<br />I knew much more than I do now</em></p></blockquote><p align="left"></em><br /></p><p></p><br /><p><em>More posts on the way as I process my diary and unscramble my thoughts.</em></p>Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966257.post-5347654696250143712009-09-22T07:12:00.002+05:302009-10-11T22:27:12.798+05:30Be Kind, Rewind<p>The flight now seems interminable. I’m looking at a row of seats next to me with screens flickering various stages of recent blockbusters. Ben Stiller is still running amok in museums while Arnold rises, buck-naked elsewhere. Staccato gunfire echoes from someone’s headphones that are way too loud. The steady hum of the jet makes you wonder “Don’t they build sound dampers into this damn thing?”</p><p>The end of a vacation is a time of ‘epic suckage’ (to use a recent hip expression I picked up from an acquaintance). Security checks, removing shoes and belts, metal detector passes. Things you grinned and bore with a song your lips on the way out here suddenly become onerous. </p><p>Every moment is fraught. “This may be the last time I drink coffee here.” (though, at the back of your mind, you know you’re going to come back. Soon.) Wistfulness sets in even before the trip is over. You look at photos in the tiny screen of a camera, trying to hold on to something that is slipping away, fast.</p><p>*sigh*. It’s time to stop fretting. Life as you have known it for years now awaits on the other side of the Atlantic. You try to switch off this feeling of dread by tuning in to the bizarre pleasures of <em>The Hangover</em>. </p><p><em>This was written on the flight out from Zurich to JFK after a most enjoyable 10-day vacation. More posts on the vacation itself coming soon. This was unfortunately the most well thought out of the paper posts from my diary, so this goes up first. Last-In-First-Out, stack-style.</em></p>Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768897856311669412noreply@blogger.com0