it was dusk..

Three of us - myself and two others were trekking.. to reach the highest peak in the area.. the hills and rocks were rough.. but covered with greenery and moss..no snow.. i was at the front.. came to the edge of a rock..it was adjacent to the next one.. going to the next one will lead us to the peak.. my hand could reach the next rock but absurdly my leg could not.. i looked down.. my palms and feet started sweating.. the gap between the two rocks went down to a deep chasm.. i could not think of crossing that gap.. it was dusk and the chasm looked darker..

the three of us stayed on..did not take the leap.. found a river flowing just behind our rock.. we sat at the edge looking to the river and cried uncontrollably..

i woke up with sweat on my palms and feet..

Help me..

help me not forget
the many days of care and love
the uncomplaining incessant hardwork
that someone did only for me..

help me remember
the many times i have admired
the differences that
make the other unique and valuable..

help me not wish
that the other thought just like i think..
or liked the exact things i like..
or acted as perfect as i try to act..
or agreed with me on issues dear to me..

help me bring
all the days and moments together
so that i can see
the high mountain and deep valleys together
so that i can marvel the beautiful big picture
and feel blessed for being able
to see it..

above all..help me remember this blog when i can't find that picture..


3 decades..

By this month I have survived 3 decades on this planet.. So has the CPM government - in Writers' building..

All these years I have struggled, and still struggle with the fact that I am not proud of my home state.. kolkata..shibpur..saltlake.. all these places only evoke a sense of sorrow and pity in me.. Sorrow for the unemployed youth languishing on the sidewalks pretending to be intellectuals discussing the state politics... Pity for the government full of geriatric criminals that feels no guilt for making West Bengal rot away sticking only to its glorious past, like their own old bodies sticking on to the state throne for 30 long years..

The West Bengal of centuries back was way ahead of rest of India - it had elite culture and academics, true thought leaders, active workforce and an industry hub..

Today, when rest of India is zooming ahead, West Bengal is doing so in reverse gear.. There is the desperate stronghold on culture even though it is only limited to food, reprinting old novels and one ageing cricketer... Education institutes struggle to keep pace and trade is filled with uninspiring worker unions combined with an unsatiated hunger for industrialization..

As a child I remember frequenting live bangla theaters with revolving stage, based on intriguing stories and skilled dramatics.. have not heard of them for long.. and all that remains of the bangla cinema industry is poor copies of hindi movies..
Perhaps the only fresh thing that is happening are the music bands that are being created by the restless and rebel youth.. It is high time they sent the oldies in Writers' building to where they belong - Dakhineshwar..

After my dad's recent visit home when we had time to sit and chat about the political situation in West Bengal, I was curious to learn more about the Nandigram incident. Today after watching the news of violence in central Kolkata, I finally dug into the Nandigram articles.. two glaring lines made me write this blog: during the police operation to contain the resistance, the dumb public put "the women and children in the front to deter the police"!! and of course, the police promptly triggered away ".303 rifles that is known to pierce 7 people in a row"!! bhogobaan... whose side would one take! the senseless victims' or the choiceless attackers'..

Tagore can sing all he wants from his grave about 'bangla'ar maati bangla'ar jol..poorno hok'.... but as long as the 3 decade old govt. doesn't step down and give youngsters a chance, I don't see any reason for me to feel great for being a born Bangali..

Historical boo-boos...

School history books in Afghanistan vouch that Pakistan continues to be under British rule..

The Chief Minsiter of Jharkhand waxes eloquent that the first lady prime minister of India, who was assassinated, was called Sonia Gandhi..

Still on the RollerCoaster

Oct-17-2007
-- Sensex crashed to 17K thereabouts within a minute of trading! Market closed for an hour.. Reason being SEBI's announcement regd. controlling Participatory Notes. Closes above 18.5K
-- First day of Durga Puja - Shoshti. Bangla nostalgia pulls me big time this year, may not be able to answer the call.. Aashche bochhor..

Oct-16-2007
-- Sensex crossed 19K mark!
-- I am working from home - internet woes persist..

Oct-09-2007

-- Sensex crossed 18K mark!
-- Today Karnataka was without a state government.

Smoke in the eyes..

This is an account of my first visit to the ZTC Foods Division in Bangalore - which led me down a very interesting bend of thought... The office is situated in a very green and lavishly spread out campus. Most of the buildings in the campus are 1 - 2 story high - a welcome change from the multistory mammoths in ITPL or other Bangalore campuses. Right on entering the office, I could detect a very faint tobacco smell.. I just told myself that the sniffdog in me has just got an imagination too, it's thinking that since this is ZTC, there would be a tobacco stench..come on! it's just the foods division, i should be smelling more of chips, biscuits etc.. :)

As the day went by every whiff of the airconditioner brought in a sure smell of tobacco.. now i could not resist and asked my ZTC peer am i imagining?! he said most probably not - we are allowed to smoke anywhere inside the premises.. i couldn't believe my ears and asked 'anywhere'?! he casually said yes, no smoke-free zone in this building!! someone had expressed their disagreement of this policy in an email and he was made to apologise for this expression!!


That sent my alarms ringing in several directions.. w
ould this affect TRG?! Should passion for one's profession/product be displayed in such mindless way?! Did the management of this organization get their degrees in 250BC?!

the first question was easily
answered after i rang up my doc and he said it's fine for a short duration and as long as i get some fresh air now and then...

Passion for
one's profession/product.... If I manufacture firearms, would I encourage shooting practice anywhere in my premises?!! If I print playboy magazines, would the strict dress-code in my office be a two-piece?! Is there no moral responsibility that ranks higher than the passion for your product/profession?!

250BC management in a 2000AD market! An employee had to apologise for expressing disagreement with the tobacco stench around him!! I hope the management of Waste Management company doesn't get inspired by the ZTC management.. ha ha!

Sep-19-2007

-- Sensex crossed 16K mark! My stock portfolio shows all green for the first time..

-- SAP announces Business by Design

India goes backward - thanks to SoniaDevi!

Year 2002: India's President - "Rocket Scientist"
Year 2007: India's (proposed) President - "College Queen"

Year 2002: Indian President's speech - "I have three visions for India..."
Year 2007: Indian (proposed) President's speech - "Daadiji ke shareer mein Baba aaye... "

Year 2002: Indian President wrote the book - India 2020
Year 2007: Indian (proposed) President will most possibly write: India 1010.

Soniaji JINDABAAD!

Long Term Goal

When I am 60, I will not be old, I will be a Classic.

Answers to Questions I will ask in future


Answer 1: No, you are not capable of living away from home any more.

Answer 2: Yes, there definitely exists someone called Lady Luck.

Answer 3: Yes, you can be weird, awkward, loud, tongue-tied, cheated, impractical, emotional, hard-boiled, looser, confused, lost.....
You are alive.

Our deepest fear..

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

--Marianne Williamson, quoted in Akeelah and the Bee

Today i waddled in an ocean of morons...

Went to follow up on my PAN card which was supposed to have come to me 2 months back.. After researching UTI's website, learnt that i was given a wrong coupon number, and UTI cannot search their database with my name and rest of the details (hunh?!)... in the pursuit to find the right coupon number i narrated my story to 10 different morons, reaching them through 20 different numbers.. i spent 4 hours in the Raheja towers - resolving ke 'aaj tho main pan number le ke hee rahoongee', spoke sweetly as well as toughly with faceless smarties whose only answers were "madam try this number" and "we will take 3 working days to find you which phone number to call"...i walked out of Raheja towers giving up on the whole deal... may be i will have to apply again, this time i will get right behind the counter to make sure the right coupon number is being given to me..

Just when I was cooling my paws on Raheja's ground floor.. the next barrage of morons were getting ready to treat me - in Standard Chartered, whose managers deserve to sweep the floors of ICICI in the hope to learn what service is...

Somewhere between the top floor and the ground floor of Raheja towers, i suddenly had my first serious attack of why-the-hell-did-we-leave-US syndrome..

Returned to office to find a center-wide email from the Center head with the subject "Brief Profile." Nothing before, nothing after! I could visualize my composition teacher getting right on top of the monitor and dancing on the email with savage fury... only after reading till the last para of the "brief" 5 para rant, i understood it was profile of some unknown guy leaving and another one replacing him... Flashback to last Center-wide performance meeting - one of our biggest liabilities cited by this very Center-head was Ineffective Communication!

The only thought that fills me with hope is that I may be getting my full quota of morons for the whole 2007 right today... BRING IT ON, mehearties..

(image source: http://www.maths.tcd.ie/)

King style

This is the welcome kit provided by Kingfisher when you apply for the frequent flier program.

For someone who is used to getting just a number on the internet followed by a plain card, it was a shocker to me!! The kingfisher flight experience in itself was way unusual - for someone used to sitting in rickety old fleet of Northwest/American Airlines with hardly any entertainment and soda/peanuts as the only refreshment served, the spanking new RED fleet of kingfisher with individual monitors, awesome food, and the little bag of welcome goodies everytime you fly, was a "HAAN?!!" experience!

Unfortunately for a skeptic like me, instead of feeling like a satisfied customer, it ends up feeling like a sticky affair.. Too much of red, too much of warmth and too much of long legs in short skirts.. (he he..)

Somehow it brings back teenage memories of being followed closely on the road by a stranger and complimented ad nauseum..

When i fly, my expectations are for the flight to be dang on time, have friendly cabin crew who are efficient and make social conversation (i wonder if any frequent flier gives a damn about the dress as long as it is neat), a pilot/announcer who communicates flight details frequently along with a dose of good humor and someone's there at the door with a smile when i push off.. everything else, for a frequent flier, is dispensable..

i remember, one tired friday evening, on a AA return flight to chicago, the flight reached half hour ahead of the scheduled time.. the announcer said with a delight in her voice "we have reached early today, next time we are late please do remember this instance" the whole flight broke out in a chuckle and it washed away most of my work-week's fatigue..

now THAT's what i would like from an air commute, the company of an acquaintance who is efficient in getting me to the destination, topped with cordial words and body language. NOT a sticky red hollywood street character showering hugs and kisses!!

Zen and the art of subtle correction...

In many ways I find Zen very similar to Gandhiism, with Zen having a tinge of arrogance and sarcasm that I find adorable.. In my mind a Zen teacher is like a mix of Gandhi and Pai Mei of KillBill..

Here is a Zen story that teaches how to correct without saying the obvious:


Many pupils were studying meditation under the Zen master Sengai. One of them used to arise at night, climb over the temple wall, and go to town on a pleasure jaunt
.

Sengai, inspecting the dormitory quarters, found this pupil missing one night and also discovered the high stool he had used to scale the wall. Sengai removed the stool and stood there in its place.

When the wanderer returned, not knowing that Sengai was the stool, he put his feet on the master's head and jumped down into the grounds. Discovering what he had done, he was aghast.

Sengai said: "It is very chilly in the early morning. Do be careful not to catch cold yourself."

The pupil never went out at night again.

Bengalooru Habba

Sunday evening was a treat at the Palace Grounds - we went to the bengalooru habba - a b'lore cultural event that happens every dec. Yesterday was the grand finale of the 8 day long event.

It started with Rangageethe - select songs from theatres (i.e., live theatres - yatras) - performed by B.Jayashree, that lady had some dum in her voice, it was ecstatic..She and her group seemed to be enjoying the performance to the hilt!



Then came some fashion shows - raga watches, peter england shirts (that asbsolootly bored us) and a wow bridal collection! The surprise of the evening was Arjun Rampal, with his wife Meher Jessia. Then entered Malaika arora (the chaiya chaiya lady) , she was alright.. The show wound up with kailash kher (mangal pandey ka singer). there were some good fireworks overhead throughout the evening..


the best part of the evening was, imho, that the tickets were freee!! and we by luck got tickets that had 'vvip' written on them (the hubba organizers must be devoted promoters of lady luck!) and got to sit right near the stage!

most good things in life come without a price tag haan! :)

here is bellary road in rain - we went on this road for the first time.

That Chennai of ours..

Last weekend I was in Chennai - here are some of the observations:
-
ze weather!!! warm sun with the coastal breeze - no s ign of the signature humidity...mmmm... there was som ething in the breeze that brought back memories of scho ol and college days - a feeling of " there is nothing i can't achieve"



-
Autowallas - a marked difference from the rude bangalore ones! yes they will pinch an extra 5-10Rs. from you but they will gladly go anywhere u want them to go!


-
Elliots beach - where is that vast expense of sand ending in rolling waves?! now it is bajji shops, kadlai shops and bhutta shops covering most of the sand, and there is such a crowd at the coast getting a little space to sit down is tough. heard that post - 10pm it is like old elliots though..

-
T-nagar - Retail boom is o-so-obvious here! Pothys has dropped its kachda image of Raja Rani and stuff and become a la spencer with very affordable collection..branded and non-branded apparel side by side. a clean food court on the topmost floor... 6 glaswalled elevators.. each floor decorated according to its collection (the pattu saree floor was traditionally decorated with lamps, the western wear floor had contemporary posters)... Saw the poshlooking Saravana Stores building, heard that they ahve everything under one roof and very affordable.. .sorry b'lore, henceforth my shopping bucks go to chennai..


Children and their link to Parental Ego

Recently I was analyzing the development of ego in children and how much contribution parents have in this process. I have not found the answer yet but in this process I realized how parental ego gets fuelled heavily by having children.

By the time a person reaches his adult age, enters married life, he has achieved a certain social and financial status. In this process he has also got mired in the complexities of life, the shrewd calculations to stay ahead in the race, and the constant fuelling of the ego to excel.
At this point, the desire to have a child would have these initial expectations:

1) A desire to return to innocence.. remember again how liberating free, selfless flow of thought and action can be.

2) Stay in touch with the creativity and youth of childhood.

3) Be instrumental in another being's existence and survival, thereby being selfless, giving preference to object libido (love towards the outside, away from self) over ego libido (love towards inside, towards self)

4) However, if the parent has faced a few significant failures in his life, there is a subconscious expectation from the yet-to-be-born child to succeed in those areas that the parent failed in. This could be the only appearance of pre-parental ego.

But as the infant is born, here are the ways these expectations take a different turn:

1) Association of the parent's physical and behavioral features with the child's - directly linking the parent's ego with the child's being (a reason that prevents adoption from being popular)

2) Comparision of the child with the peer age group, constantly throughout the growth phase. This again fuels the ego of the child as well as the parent, to be better than others.

3) Inhibition of the child's free expression and interests, to conform with the societal norms of success.

4) An expectation of a emotional/financial 'return' from the child when he grows up. In Indian society this return mainfests in gestures like taking the first salary to the parents, taking care of the parents when they are old, etc.


This is just a summary of the two lines of thought that may be working subconsciously in a parent's mind, before he has the child and after. This summary is not judgmental but purely analytical.

Rediscovery of India?!

1. 3 years is enough time to get dumbed down and forget how to survive here... Took me 2 months to truly get used to the roads again (ie to drive at par with the auto/cab guys)

2. lack of tools.. while putting up a train passenger list, the railway guy was using his bare hands to spread the adhesive on the train... a simple brush would've looked so much more elegant in the artist's hands!

3. garbage ...garbage .... everywhere! just an efficient garbage disposal system will give India a huge facelift.. while travellin from cbe to blr, the bushes right out of the station looked like cotton trees from some distance...when the train pulled closer they were vast fields of dry bushes covered with plastic bags...

4. public transportation.. the lovely and the ugly

the lovely: city buses have recognized market need surprisingly well! along with usual city buses, BMTC has fleets of shining volvo buses that are air-conditioned, have plush seats and play the hip radio channels on lovely speakers! the ticket price is thrice the usual city bus ticket price, but worth every paisa! (here are some pics from one mr.ravikumar's blog)



the ugly: auto-rickshaws of bangalore! the rick drivers have more attitude than any child actor of hollywood/bollywood! they will agree to go from point A to point B only if:
1. point B is en route to their home
2. point B is right on an autostand so they don't have to waste a second of their precious time waiting for passengers..
3. you are willing to go by the 'meter+50' demand...

if none of the above points are met, you may have to ask some 15 autodrivers and see them turning away (without bothering to say "no") before you find one who will say 'yes' and you'd feel blessed!

5. themepark... i've been only to Wonderla since coming here but that one experience has highly impressed me! No individual ride tickets, no impolite park employees, no kachda lying everywhere, no line jumping... the last factor caused the most exhileration in me - there was a long line for the dashing car ride, and a little girl got impatient and jumped the line and wiggle right to the entry spot where a security guy was letting the next batch in.. the security guard sternly told this girl to go out of the line and not come back for this ride!!! even though i felt bad for the little girl, i felt like clapping my hands at the enforcement of discipline!! if only more law enforcers knew the meaning of 'enforcement', india could have its common man less frustrated...

6. vehicles.. the most evident sign of a booming economy - shining cars, are clogging the roads. a new bike (ie the motorcycles) model comes out every two months! and Reva... makes me really proud - the world's cheapest electric vehicle, quite a few of them on Bangalore roads.. only problem is charging it...only parking spots of private houses are equipped with the 15Amps outlet that the battery charger requires..

Throw-away..


Today i dug in the bag of old clothes that i had packed to give away cos they don't suit me..Took out a green shirt and wore it to work..Didn't give it any thought until at the starbucks line a lady approched me to say how lovely the shirt was.... Ha! Obviously, this shirt will not go back to that bag - long live the public!