Cambridge, Ruchi, Dhoni...

T sent some digital pictures of Cambridge taken in her characteristic style. The camera angles are pretty unusual and make a statement. Am posting 3 of them:



Today is my sister’s 40th Birthday. Happy Birthday, Ruchi. May God bless you! Hope you soon make peace with your inner self.
And, ah, in the Jaipur ODI, Dhoni played a swashbuckling knock and scored a match winning unbeaten 183 in 145 balls with 15 fours and 10 power sixes. What a knock, and what a way to herald Diwali! Team India is certainly getting its act together. Way to go.

India goes on...

My friend, Shradha, who is settled in US and is a part of our Yahoo! egroup of the Class of 1981, was disturbed about “these tragic blasts in some busy markets in Delhi.” She said in her post to the group: “It is like one step forward and two back in bringing peace in the region. I hope wisdom prevails!”

This is what I wrote back regarding Delhi 29/10:
Thank you, Shradha, for your concern. It's sad that innocent people are being killed. It serves no purpose. While our politicians make merry and bureaucrats party in their safari suits, ordinary people who have harmed nobody get blown into pieces. It is so very sad.
I am hurt. I am angry. I am numb. Life goes on. We carry on with fortitude and a smile on our lips. We were getting ready to attend a party when we heard the news last evening. For a moment, I thought not to go. Maybe it was not safe. Maybe it would be a callous thing to do. Then we decided to go. 32 kms from our home, to Gurgaon. The roads were full of cars. Ordinary people were going about their business. The daily rigour of life. FM radios took the role of a counsellor and were broadcasting messages of hope. Ordinary people were coming forward to help ordinary people. Patriotic songs were being played on the radio. Not loud, not kitschy. The subliminal message: Life must go on. We must not be cowed down. We have to hold our head high, get our smile back, and live with stoicism.
For centuries, India has been ravished, but it has survived. Resilience is a part of our DNA. It has built our character. We shall go on. The journey of life is a reward in itself!

What do you think? Take care...

Return of the Prodigal

Lotsa work at office and lotsa excitement. Things are falling into place regarding the BB initiative. I am excited about the possibilities and glad that the Internet happened to me. It’s an amazing place to be in.

Do check out the Internet Archive, a digital library of sorts. It can only happen on the web. Knowledge sharing is knowledge enhanced!
Oh, please do join me in celebrating the return of Sachin at the Nagpur ODI. To me, he is more than a master blaster. He epitomises the hero-starved nation’s hopes in his lithe frame, and that’s a huge burden to carry. May God bless him!

A house for Mr. Trehan

Today, we initiated the process of building a house for ourselves in SC-I. Had the first meeting with the architect and briefed him about our requirements. S and I are pretty excited about the whole thing. We plan to build a functional and aesthetically pleasing home. (In my mind, there is no contradiction between function and beauty). Shall keep you posted about the progress.
Today, Ma also came to stay for a little while and it’s nice to have her with us.

Honcho Rap

Received a mail the other day from my pretty and vivacious friend, Neha, of VAA. She has been featured as a honcho in e4m’s weekend mailer and was thrilled to bits.
When asked “what are the three things that you love about life?”, she said: “Hope, struggle, conquest. Life is about that and there is beauty in all three.” I thought that was cool. I would be meeting her on Atul’s Birthday Bash on the 29th. She is doing the music that day.
Vivacious Neha

Do check out flock. Could it be the future of blogging?
Do also take a look at my wife’s Waka on KC and 25 years of our friendship. It seems she has found her calling in Waka poetry.
Take care all you lovely people out there…

Saturday-Sunday Rap

16 October 2005: My friend, Bipasha, who has recently moved to Singapore to be with hubby Varun, has sent some lovely pictures of their son, Vansh. I call him Mr. VRM, the Cool Dude. Do check out the pictures here. Don’t you think it’s a swell idea to use KodakGallery.com to post and share your pictures? This is what the social web is all about. More power to you, Bipasha.
Vansh and Bipasha

Saw Riding the Bus with My Sister starring Rosie O’Donnell and Andie MacDowell on the Hallmark channel. A moving true story of two sisters with one coming to grips with the other who is developmentally challenged. Check out Andie’s interview here.
Ah, and before I forget, have finally started Shalimar the Clown. It has already cast a spell on me. Rushdie, how do you write like a dream!

15 October 2005: Do take a look at Meebo. A project of three ex-Stanford students, it is trying to bring IM to Web 2.0. You can do all your IMing at one place here and it’s still evolving. If it can seamlessly integrate all IM platforms and iron out bugs, it will work. Work like hell.

Read a lovely piece of literary review at my absolute favourite, NYT.com, by Langdon Hammer of Yale. He was reviewing a new book by Helen Vendler, in the genre of literary criticism. This is what Hammer wrote: “Vendler is a formalist critic who describes how poems are made. In this book she explores how the "tones of voice" by which a speaker is created imply a relationship between the speaker and a listener or reader, which she sees as ethical in nature. A poet's manner, his verbal style, is a set of manners, a way of being with the reader. Nothing is more time-bound, more subject to social definition, than our manners. But Vendler is interested in a "Utopian" kind of poem that, rather than confirming current social expectations, wants "to redefine them." Such poems look into the future or the past to forge a bond - spiritual, erotic or artistic - that is unavailable in the present. They create an uncanny intimacy, inviting us into a space outside ordinary time, somehow within the language of the poem itself.”
Invisible Listeners
Lyric Intimacy in Herbert, Whitman, and Ashbery
By Helen Vendler
95 pp. Princeton University Press. $19.95
(In January this year, I visited Dow Jones at Princeton, and on a rainy evening, ‘toured’ the venerable University in a car. What a magical, serene, scenic place of scholarship!)

Saw Hawking on the Hallmark channel. "Stephen's is a heroic story of great achievement. It's about the nature of time on both a deeply personal and a universal scale. At the moment when his intellect was striving to grow to its full potential, his physical self was cruelly closing down. The fact that he never spoke about it, but through sheer force of will and personality determined to be bigger than his illness, is inspirational." - Jessica Pope, Hawking producer. Brilliantly told story of a man who wrote “A brief history of time” and “The universe in a nutshell” and rose against a debilitating disease. Hawking was played by Benedict Cumberbatch, a moving performance.
Hawking and Cumberbatch

While I was watching the film, I thought of four things:
a) Man is capable of doing great things
b) Woman is capable of doing greater. Only they can somehow find it in themselves to sacrifice more for love. Hawking’s wife, Jane, is an amazing woman.
c) There’s something about England. It nurtures talent and scholarship. That’s what makes it a great country.
d) T at this very moment is in Trinity.
Do check out Hawking.org.uk to learn more about this courageous and luminous man.

The Ferrari-less Monk

Attended Mindscape’s Leadership Wisdom workshop by the Monk who sold his Ferrari, Robin Sharma. Though Robin was spouting conventional wisdom, I quite enjoyed his presentation style and extremely well modulated speech. Cool stuff.

Robin is 41, brimming with energy and a major motivational speaker and writer. Do check out “The Success Manifesto: 200 Powerful Ideas for an Extraordinary Life” on his website. Take care…

Love Story of a Ghost

Saw Paheli at home and I must say I am impressed with the production values and the script. Palekar’s direction is taut and he manages to impart a lyrical quality to the film.
A fable set in feudal Rajasthan, the film is about the yearning for love that everywoman has. It has a strong feminist connotation and can also be situated in the modern context. It’s the tale of everywoman anywhere in the world. She yearns for love, while the man yearns for cash. She makes loves to a ghost because he fulfils her, and in an ironical way, the ghost also fills the empty spaces in a man and makes him whole. It’s a beautiful tale adapted from a story by Vijaydan Detha.

Those who criticised Paheli for showcasing the ‘feudal’ nature of India and encouraging ‘superstition’ have totally missed the point. They have taken the film literally while it’s a parable not only of a man woman relationship but also of love: of unrequited love and of enriching love. If at all, it shows the richness of Indian creativity, its colours and a vibrant social mosaic. AB as the wise shepherd gives a breakthrough performance. I can now understand why the film got selected as India’s entry for the Oscars. It’s a truly Indian film and needs to be celebrated for its classical treatment that doesn’t drag it down but elevates it to almost an art form. Chandran’s cinematography is magical. Well done, Amol Palekar. And SRK, hats off for producing it.
Do check out the official site. It’s cool. Also, this review at Rediff by Raja Sen beautifully captures the essence of Paheli.
And, oh, Happy Dussehra!

Unilever, Ahoy!

Discovered the new logo of Unilever. It has had a soft launch last year, but is not unveiled yet on all its global brand properties. I thought the design is unusual and makes the company look pretty accessible and friendly.

Do check out this link to see a flash demo explaining the concept behind the design and how it epitomises the company’s vision of Adding vitality to life. Take care…

Laughing Squid

I came across this interesting site on underground art, culture and technology originating from San Francisco and beyond. The logo is pretty evocative, don’t you think?

Do check out its post on Netscape co-founder Marc Andressen’s latest "top secret project, 24 Hour Laundry, officially launched as a social applications remix service, Ning." In the emerging Web 2.0, Social Apps are bound to play a pivotal role. Cheers.

Earthquake Havoc

The earth quaked yesterday and the world of thousands in North India and Pakistan tumbled. I feel enormously sad. Do read what my 12 year old daughter feels about it.
The Super Series turned out to be a non-starter as the Aussies gave the World XI a hiding of their life. What a whitewash, 3-0. Maybe we should give a free hand to the Aussie Greg to mould the Indian team into a mean machine, a fighting outfit.
Have you checked out the award winning mini-series, Lost, on Star Movies on Saturdays at 7 pm? After Spielberg’s mesmerising Taken, we are taken by it and it’s getting to be pretty engaging.

In this turbulent world, do look after yourselves.

Cool Rheingold

For long I have idolized Howard Rheingold. His book, The Virtual Community, has an almost cult-like following. Now he has written, Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Take a look at this: “Smart mobs emerge when communication and computing technologies amplify human talents for cooperation. The impacts of smart mob technology already appear to be both beneficial and destructive, used by some of its earliest adopters to support democracy and by others to coordinate terrorist attacks. The technologies that are beginning to make smart mobs possible are mobile communication devices and pervasive computing - inexpensive microprocessors embedded in everyday objects and environments. Already, governments have fallen, youth subcultures have blossomed from Asia to Scandinavia, new industries have been born and older industries have launched furious counterattacks.” This will be worth reading.
While I was on Rheingold’s site, I discovered that he is also a digital artist. Am posting two of his paintings. Amazing use of colours, don’t you think?
Green Man

Green Man’s Third Eye

Oh, by the way, heard from K today. She has resurfaced as Oracle Capability Development Specialist. Some stuff. This is what she wrote: “I am doing fine. Just been too busy with work. I blame Larry Ellison for all my problems. Every time he goes shopping, my workload increases! I hate this man!! And they say he has a way with women – certainly not me!! Lol.” Am glad that after all these years, she still remains my “biggest fan” (her words). It’s so nourishing for my fragile ego. Thank you, K.

BBC iMP

Do take a look at the Integrated Media Player currently undergoing user trials in UK. In the era of convergence, this is the way to go. Cheers.

A cabwoman in Manhattan

Wrote this poem last Sunday. Do check it out.
K…Haven’t heard from you for a long time. Wassup at Accenture and in life? Do email or post a comment. Talking of social interaction, Lycos has recently launched a social interaction platform, aptly titled Planet (reminds me of the Blue Planet series of articles on Internet countercultures I wrote for PC World), that would add more power to our interactions on the web. Take a look at it here. Have fun.

Lovely Sonya

Posting a picture of my friend, Sonya, who is currently based in Singapore. She is a hotshot Account Director at a global PR firm, and a warm and beautiful person. She takes her work very seriously and always, always delivers. Just thought I should share this with you folks out there.
Meanwhile, there’s lotsa zing at work and we are raring to go. Cool.

Parineeta

Saw Parineeta at home today and truly enjoyed the film. While Saif and the debutant, Vidya Balan, gave stunning performances, I was mesmerised by the almost impressionistic art direction and cinematography. In some short sequences, the film promises to emerge triumphantly and claim its place as a classic in the Bollywood pantheon, but the overall package falls way short. A let down of sorts. The end is abrupt and melodramatic and the film could have done with some moments of resonant pauses and low decibel intensity. At times it gets loud and kitschy--almost naïve in its villainous schema-- and that detracts from its potential. In any case, Balan is a girl to watch out for. Those emotive and seething eyes will go a long way in an industry short on talent and high on hype.

Tia Said...

My beautiful and intelligent friend, Tia, saw me a trifle disturbed the other day and wrote this comment on the blog: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” True, and very relevant. I am grateful for your concern, dear Tia, and it’s nice to know that your friends care. Thank you.
American Cowboy-Humorist and the movie star, Will Rogers, once said: “I never met people I didn’t like.” For long I have subscribed to this belief and I am not going to lose faith now. However, I have to learn to deal with duplicitous behaviour with equanimity and a smiling countenance, and that’s going to be an education. The world is replete with wonderful people and I have decided to surround myself with people who spread the sunshine of good cheer and bonhomie. People like the beautiful Tia.