11--13 May 2005

13 May 2005: Shelle and I went to see the opening play at the Hungry Hearts Festival at IHC. Lushin Dubey performed the opening act in her Untitled solo performance which evocatively and very powerfully threw some bright and shining light on the condition of women in a world where men make all the rules and are the judge and prosecutor too. Her performance spanned the two worlds of Greek tragic heroine, Medea, and an Indian queen trying to deal with the perverse shenanigans of her king. Telling performance by Lushin with a dexterous use of the muppets and we also discovered that she is a good ventriloquist. Arvind Gaur’s direction was outstanding.
After the play, Deepti Naval read poems from her book, Black Wind. Some of the poems were pretty intense and she comes across as a sensitive person, but the poems by and large lacked the craft of a good writer.

12 May 2005: Robert Spears emailed me about the launch of their new blog, ContentSutra. He said that its focus “will be on the digital content market of India - with a goal of serving as a bridge between the Indian digital media market and the rest of the world.” I checked out the blog and it looks cool and is fraught with potential. I have already bookmarked it. I think Rafat Ali is doing some amazing work in the eContent space.

11 May 2005: Could turn out to be an important day for me but I am not telling.

1-8 May 05

8 May 2005: Today is Mother’s Day. Ma, I wish you a Happy Mother’s Day and thank you for being what you are.

7 May 2005: Read the news that Craig Newmark is now eyeing community journalism. It is a bottom-up approach towards journalism, something which I am also very gung-ho about. I feel like a student of the myriad facets of Internet. I have so much to learn and so many miles to cross.
Naomi wanted to watch a Bollywood film, so Anita and I took her to see Kaal. It turned out to be quite a disappointment with over-done sound effects that were almost raucous. Saving grace: Ajay Devgan’s performance! This was followed by a rather non-descript dinner at Eatopia where the food was good as usual but the crowd was spilling over.

6 May 2005: Naomi arrived in Delhi from Varanasi and we took her (and her Japanese guest, a GM in a technical training company) out to Rodeo in CP. The place had an attitude in its earlier avatar but after the renovation it just isn’t the same. Sometimes it’s better to stick to the proven formula.

5 May 2005: Discovered two of the most exciting blogs on the emerging media. Craig’s List founder Craig Newmark’s blog, and Jeff Jarvis’amazing Buzz Machine. These guys are gurus. I bow before them, and would strive to learn as much as I can from these two pioneers. Also had a very interesting conversation with Bala Pillai, founder of Malaysia.net, who operates in the fields of Knowledge Management, Social Networks, Citizen Journalism and Complementary Currency. I also believe in citizen powered journalism and the power and reach of social software. I believe that the world has seen nothing of the Internet yet. In the coming years, it's going to explode, and not because it's great technology but because it harnesses the collective power of a million human minds. The colonies of mind shall rule. It looks like we are two kindred spirits travelling in cyberspace.

2 May 2005: The muse has not visited me for about a week now but am working on a very interesting poem on a very different topic. Will share when I am ready but it’s going to take time as I am doing some background research.

1 May 2005: Met up with Naomi Okiyama, my lovely friend from Tokyo, who is visiting India on a whirlwind sightseeing tour of four cities. Naomi is a sensitive and emotional girl and am keen to ensure that she has a good time in India. I still remember that day in September last year when we were saying goodbye in Kyoto, she had tears in her eyes. It is my belief that this world is full of beautiful people and most people respond to affection and warmth. There are a few bad eggs and we should not allow them to colour our worldview. Tomorrow she is leaving for the Pink City and will be back in Delhi on the 6th. Then we plan to show her some night watering holes :).