Walks of Life

The startup blog goes private

2011-11-13T23:38:00.001-08:00

We have been so caught up in the middle of execution in the last year that blogging on the startup has virtually stopped. This is a dangerous trend as not blogging in some sense is really "not thinking", not hearing your own voice in the din of noises around. And boy, are there noises. We have now spent roughly half the money given to us and a better part of the year in experimentation of different kinds. A visit to the second partner meet really brought home the point that while we began with plenty of thought and process, we did drop those ideas along the way in the pursuit of something more commercial. Here is an attempt to kickstart that process again. Interestingly, this blog has the least number of visitor interest although it contains the most core ideas on how we are building this business and I have to often think several times of the benefits of keeping this blog public. Given the sensitivity of information I intend to put out on the blog, going forward the startup blog will be for private viewing only. The original idea was to assist other entrepreneurs who may be treading along similar paths. However, it is now inhibiting free expression to the point of futility, so relevant snippets if any will be posted back on this blog. Adios, Ink.

The Moment has come...

2011-10-07T01:20:00.000-07:00

A lovely article by David Pogue in today's Economic Times

Wednesday evening, Apple broke the news that Steve Jobs had died.
Since that moment, tributes, eulogies and retrospectives have poured over the world like rain. He changed industries, redefined business models, fused technology and art. People are comparing him to Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, Leonardo da Vinci. And they’re saying that it will be a very long time before the world sees the likes of Steve Jobs again.
Probably true. But why not, do you suppose? After all, there are other brilliant marketers and business executives. They’re all over Silicon Valley — all over the world.

Many of them, maybe most of them, have studied Steve Jobs, tried to absorb his methods and his philosophy.
Surely if they pore over the Jobs playbook long enough, they can recreate some of his success.

But nobody ever does, even when they copy Mr Jobs’ moves down to the last eyebrow twitch. Why not? Here’s a guy who never finished college, never went to business school, never worked for anyone else a day in his adult life. So how did he become the visionary who changed every business he touched? Actually, he’s given us clues all along. Remember the “Think Different” ad campaign he introduced upon his return to Apple in 1997?
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The rebels. The troublemakers. The ones who see things differently. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.”
In other words, the story of Steve Jobs boils down to this: Don’t go with the flow.

Steve Jobs refused to go with the flow. If he saw something that could be made better, smarter or more beautiful, nothing else mattered. Not internal politics, not economic convention, not social graces. Apple has attained its current astonishing levels of influence and success because it’s nimble. It’s incredibly focused.

It’s had stunningly few flops. And that’s because Mr Jobs didn’t buy into focus groups, groupthink or decision by committee. Uncommon Sense
At its core, Apple existed to execute the visions in his brain. He oversaw every button, every corner, every chime. He lost sleep over the fonts in the menus, the cardboard of the packaging, the colour of the power cord. That’s just not how things are done. Often, his laser focus flew in the face of screamingly obvious common sense. He wanted to open a chain of retail stores — after the failure of Gateway’s chain had clearly demonstrated that the concept was doomed. He wanted to sell a smartphone that had no keyboard, when physical keys were precisely what had made the Black-Berry the most popular smartphone at the time. Over and over again, he took away our comfy blankets. He took away our floppy drives, our dial-up modems, our camcorder jacks, our nonglossy screens, our Flash, our DVD drives, our removable laptop batteries. How could he do that? You’re supposed to add features, not take them away, Steve! That’s just not done!
(Often, I was one of the bellyachers. And often, I’d hear from Mr Jobs. He’d call me at home, or when I was out to dinner, or when I was vacationing with my family. And he’d berate me for not seeing his bigger picture. On the other hand, sometimes he’d call to praise me for appreciating what he was going for. A CEO calling a reviewer at home? That’s just not done.)

Eventually, of course, most people realised that he was just doing that Steve Jobs thing again: being ahead of his time. Eventually, in fact, society adopted a cycle of reaction to Apple that became so predictable, it could have been a “Saturday Night Live” skit.
Phase 1: Steve Jobs takes the stage to introduce a new product.
Phase 2: The tech bloggers savage it. (“The iPad has no mouse, no keyboard, no GPS, no USB, no card slot, no camera, no Flash!? It’s dead on arrival!”)
Phase 3: The product comes out, the public goes nuts for it, the naysayers seem to disappear into the earth.
Phase 4: The rest of the industry leaps into high gear trying to do just what Apple did.
And so yes, there are other geniuses. There are other brilliant marketers, designers and business executives. Maybe, once or twice in a million, those skills even coincide in the same person. But will that person also have the vision? The name “Steve Jobs” may appear on 300 patents, but his gift wasn’t invention. It was seeing the promise in some early, clunky technology — and polishing it, refining it and simplifying it until it becomes a standard component. Like the mouse, menus, windows, the CD-ROM or Wi-Fi. Even at Apple, is there anyone with the imagination to pluck brilliant, previously unthinkable visions out of the air — and the conviction to see them through with monomaniacal attention to detail? Suppose there were. Suppose, by some miracle, that some kid in a garage somewhere at this moment possesses the marketing, invention, business and design skills of a Steve Jobs. What are the odds that that same person will be comfortable enough — or maybe uncomfortable enough — to swim upstream, all in pursuit of an unshakable vision? Zero. The odds are zero.

Mr Jobs is gone. Everyone who knew him feels that sorrow. But the ripples of that loss will widen in the days, weeks and years to come. In 2005, Steve Jobs gave the commencement address to the graduating students at Stanford. He told them the secret that defined him in every action, every decision, every creation of his tragically unfinished life: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

My Personal Hero.

2011-08-25T20:06:00.000-07:00

To commemorate, what can only be described with great sadness, here is some space on my space for you. Wish you all the very best Mr Jobs. You remain a personal hero, shinning up in the sky as a guiding light. Someday when the sorrow of this moment has passed, I will write more in detail. Your story is remarkable, your strength, your courage, your flaws - all make you more loved in a way like no other. Hope you continue the miracles and defy all odds with your health.

With much love,
Another FAN

Water Color

2011-08-02T06:19:00.000-07:00

Here is some brilliant water color paintings that A sent to me a couple of years back. The artist is a Maharashtrian painter called Narayan Peth. Enjoy!

Contemporary Art Exhibition UB city

2011-06-21T10:26:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of an on-going contemporary Indian art exhibition at UB city mall Bangalore. While it was great to bring together a collection of works from a collection of galleries across the country, I was a little disappointed with the overall quality of the work.

For being a 'contemporary' 'Indian' exhibition, I found the complexity of compositions, the use of abstraction, distortion, perspectives, dimension and most importantly, bringing in something that is uniquely Indian missing a bit for me. The paintings are in the affordable range from Ra 25,000 - Rs 5 lakhs. The most expensive one I saw was by a Malayali artist showcased by Sara Arrakal's gallery. Glad for the initiative, great to be in the midst of art but sadly, no "WOW! that blew my mind!" sorta moments typically experienced in the famed galleries of Europe and NY.

"There is no Abstract Art"..

2011-05-22T06:23:00.000-07:00

I have been reading some mind blowing art theory and have decided to type out some of the brilliant stuff here, so that I dont forget and it remains here for future reading. Also, any art lover out there can have a blast with this....I have always loved Picasso up until his obsession with the dog/ bird phase.....here are some excerpts from the mind of a genius.

Excerpts from "Conversations with Picasso" in Cahiers d'Art, Paris, 1935 published in the book "Art Theory 1900-2000" - A critique of Modernism....

"In the old days, pictures went forward towards completion by stages. Every day brought something new. A picture used to be sum of additions. In my case, a picture is a sum of destructions. I do a picture – then I destroy it. In the end though, nothing is lost; the red I took away from one place turns up somewhere else.

It would be very interesting to preserve photographically, not the stages but the metamorphosis of a picture. Possibly, one might then discover the path followed by the brain in materializing a dream. But there is a very odd thing – to notice that basically, a picture doesn’t change, that first ‘vision’ almost remains intact, in spite of appearances. I often ponder on a light and a dark when I put them into a picture, I try hard to break them up by interpolating a color that will create a different effect. When the work is photographed, I find that what I put in to correct my first ‘vision’ has disappeared, and that after all, the photographic image corresponds with my first vision before the transformation I insisted on.

A picture is not thought out and settled beforehand. While it is being done, it changes as one’s thoughts change. And when it is finished, it still goes on changing, according to the mind of whoever is looking at it. A picture lives a life like a living creature, undergoing the changes imposed on us by our life from day to day. This is natural enough, as the picture lives only through the man who is looking at it. […]

When you begin a picture, you often make some pretty discoveries. You must be on guard against these. Destroy the thing; do it over several times. In each destroying of a beautiful discovery, the artist does not really suppress it, but rather transforms it, condenses it, makes it more substantial. What comes out in the end is the result of discarded finds. Otherwise, you become your own connoisseur. I sell myself nothing.

Abstract art is only painting. What about drama?There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward, you can remove all traces of reality. There is no danger then, because the idea of the object will have left an indelible mark. It is what stirred the artist off, excited his ideas and stirred up his emotions. Ideas and emotions will in the end be prisoners in his work. Whatever they do, they can’t escape from the picture. They form an integral part of it, even when their presence is no longer discernible. Whether he likes it or not, man is the instrument of nature. It forces on him its character and appearance, one cannot go against nature. It is stronger than the strongest man; it is pretty much in our interest to be on good terms with it! We may allow ourselves some liberties, but only in details.

Nor is there any ‘figurative’ and ‘nonfigurative’ art. Everything appears to us in the guise of a ‘figure’. Even in metaphysics, ideas are expressed in the guise of symbolic ‘figures’. See how ridiculous it is then to think of painting without ‘figuration’. A person, an object, a circle are all ‘figures’; they react on us more or less intensely. Some are nearer our sensations and produce emotions that touch our affective faculties, others appeal more directly to the intellect. They should all be allowed a place because I find my spirit has quite as much need of emotion as my senses.

Do you think it concerns me that a particular picture of mine represents two people? Though these two people once existed for me, they exist no longer. The ‘vision’ of them gave me a preliminary emotion; then little by little their actual presence became blurred; they developed into a kind of fiction and then disappeared altogether, or rather they were transformed into all kinds of problems. They are no longer two people, you see, but forms and colors, that have taken on, meanwhile, the idea of two people and preserve the vibration of their life.

The artist is a receptacle for all emotions that come from all over the place; from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web. That is why we must not discriminate between things. Where things are concerned, there are no class distinctions. We must pick out what is good for us where we can find it – except from our own works. I have a horror of copying myself. […]

[..] The painter goes through states of fullness and evaluation. That is the whole secret of art, I go for a walk in the forest of Fontainbleau, I get ‘green’ indigestion. I must get rid of this sensation into a picture. Green rules it. A painter paints to unload himself of feelings and visions.

People seize on painting to cover up their nakedness. They get what they can wherever they ca. In the end I can’t believe they get anything at all. They’ve simply cut a coat to the measure of their own ignorance. They make everything, from God to a picture, in their own image. That is why the picture-hook is the ruination of a painting –a painting always has certain significance, at least as much as the man who did it. As soon as it is bought and hung on a wall, it takes on quite a different kind of significance, and the painting is done for.

Academic training in beauty is a sham. We have been deceived, but so well deceived that we can scarcely get back even a shadow of truth. The beauties of the Parthenon, Venuses, Nymphs, Narcissuses are so many lies. Art is not the application of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don’t start measuring her limbs. We love her with our desires – although everything has been done to try and apply a canon even to love. The Parthenon is really only a farmyard over which someone put a roof; colonnades and sculptures were added because there were people in Atens who happened to be working, and wanted to express themselves. It’s not what the artist does that counts, but what he is. Cezzanne would never have interested me a bit if had lived and through like Jacques Emile Blanche, even if the apple he painted had been ten times as beautiful. What forces out interest if Cezzanne’s anxiety – that’s Cezzanne’s lesson; the torments of Van Gogh –that is the actual drama of the man. The rest is a sham.

Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the songs of the bird? Why does one love the night, flowers, everything around one, without trying to understand them? But in the case of a painting people have to understand. If only they would realize above all that an artist works of necessity, that he himself is only a trifling bit of the world, and that no more importance should be attached to him than to plenty of other things which please us in the world., though we can’t explain them. People who try to explain things often end up barking at the wrong tree. Gertrude Stein joyfully announced to me the other day that she had finally understood what my picture of three musicians meant to be. It was a still life!

How can you expect an onlooker to live a picture of mine as I lived it? A picture comes to me from miles away, who is to say from how far away I senses it, saw it, painted it; and yet, the next day I can’t see what I’ve done myself. How can anyone enter my dreams, my instincts, my desires, my thoughts, which have taken a long time to mature and to come out into the day light and above all grasp from them what I have been about – perhaps against my own will?

With the exception of few painters who are opening new horizons to painting, young painters today don’t know which way to go. Instead of taking up our researches in order to react clearly against us, they are absorbed with brining the past back to life – when truly the whole world is open before us everything waiting to be done, not just redone. Why cling desperately to everything that has already been fulfilled in terms of its promise! There are miles of painting ‘in the manner of’; but it is rare to find a young man working in his own way.
Does he wish to believe that a man can’t repeat himself? To repeat is to run counter to spiritual laws, essentially escapism.

I am no pessimist; I don’t loathe art, because I couldn’t live without devoting all my time to it. I love it as the only end of my life. Everything I do connected with it gives me intense pleasure. But still, I don’t see why the whole world should be taken up with art, demand its credentials, and on that subject, give free rein to its own stupidity.

Museums are just a lot of lies, and the people who make art their business are mostly imposters. I don’t understand why revolutionary countries should have more prejudices about art than out-of-date countries! We have infected the pictures in museums with all our stupidities, all our mistakes, all our poverty of spirit. We have turned them into petty and ridiculous things. We have tied them up to a fiction, instead of trying to sense what inner life there was in the men who painted them. There ought to be an absolute dictatorship ….a dictatorship of painter….a dictatorship of one painter…to suppress all those who have betrayed us, to suppress the cheaters, to suppress the tricks, to suppress mannerisms, to suppress charms, to suppress history, to suppress a heap of other things. But common sense always gets away with it. Above all, let’s have a revolution against that! The true dictator will always be conquered by the dictatorship of common sense…and maybe not!

Steve Jobs

2011-02-19T22:16:00.000-08:00

The internet is rife with rumours of Steve Jobs dying in 6 weeks. Here is a quote from the man himself at an earlier time on his illnesses and death....

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it’s quite true. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become."

He remains a personal inspiration and as Venkat mentioned ystd, even if he is dying, he is going away in his prime, with the world watching. Wish it could end better for him.

At Evening

2011-02-18T23:42:00.000-08:00

Let me now sleep, let me not think, let me
Not ache with inconsistent tenderness.
It was untenable delight; we are free--
Separate, equal--and if loverless,
Love consumes time which is more dear than love,
More unreplicable. With everything
Thus posited, the choice was clear enough
And daylight ratified our reckoning.

Now only movement marks the birds from the pines;
Now it's dark; the blinded stars appear;
I am alone, you cannot read these lines
Who are with me when no one else is here,
Who are with me and cannot hear my voice
And take my hand and abrogate the choice.

- Vikram Seth

Malegam Committee Report – First Thoughts

2011-01-19T11:36:00.000-08:00

Death Knell for MFIs or time for transformation?

The much awaited Malegam committee report is finally here. A summary of key recommendations is as below:
• All NBFCs who have more than 90% of their loan portfolio dedicated to “low income borrowers” with loan sizes under Rs 25,000 are to be registered separately as NBFC – MFIs. All recommendations in the report apply only to this category of NBFC MFIs.
• “Low income” borrowers are defined as borrowers who’s annual income is less than Rs 50,000.
• All individual loan sizes are to be restricted to Rs 25,000.
• If the loan amount is less than Rs 15,000, the loan tenure must be minimum 1 year and if the loan amount exceeds Rs 15,000, the tenure must be at minimum 2 years
• Atleast 75% of loans given to be a borrower must be a business loan ie used for income generating purposes
• Interest rate cap of 24% per annum computed on a principal that declines with the loan installment repayment. This assumes a 15% Roe post tax and 3% roa at stable state.
• Maximum interest to be charged must also be capped at borrowing cost + 10% for large MFIs (loan portfolio of over Rs 100 crores) and borrowing cost + 12% for small MFIs
• Loan processing fee cap of 1% of the loan. No other charges allowed
• Only actual cost of insurance to be recovered, no other admin charges to be allowed
• Only 2 MFIs can lend to one borrower. MFIs to self regulate this through credit bureaus to be appointed and monitored by MFIN and Sa-dhan. If MFIs give loans to customers who have 2 loans already, the MFI granting the third loan should have a interest and principal moratorium until the previous loans are repaid
• No more collection at customers premises, only at a centralized location
• If coercive methods are used for recovery, management can be penalized under criminal laws
• AP act to be repealed
• Priority sector status to be removed.
• Entry barriers to new NBFC MFIs in the form of hike in capital requirements to Rs 15 crore from Rs 2 crore
• Social Development Fund to be set up to encourage social sector vcs who expect returns in the range of 10-12%

Key Issues

1. 2 MFIs to a customer: This is a near certain death knoll for the industry. Given that currently, there are more than 10 MFIs chasing customers actively and on an average 4-5 loans per customer, it means that at least one half of the industry needs to be wiped out.

Secondly, this will result into creation of a regulatory created monopolistic scenario with no benefits of any market mechanisms which could have led to interest rate falls. Malegam’s solution is to request banks to come into play with the BC model and also through the set up of more scheduled banks. BC models are yet to take off at the scale expected, and with exception of a few banks such as Axis or Corporation, several others are uninterested – perhaps due to inertia to evolve a new business model with thin margins.

Thirdly, implementation for the 2 MFI to a customer rule has been left to the discretion of the MFIs and credit beureus to be set up by MFIN and Sadhan are expected to address this. This is akin to the general who gives orders to a blind army and then blames the army for defeat. It is the RBI’s job to regulate and Malegam has not come out with any concrete suggestion for implementing any of its suggestions. Inability to verify across customers due to lack of a common field (until UID) remains a critical issue and customers could quite easily register under different names – they usually have inconsistent names and ages across documentation.

2. Transition to higher income customers with higher loan sizes: To ensure survival, most MFIs would try to now set up new entities that target the customers who’s family incomes are more than Rs 50,000 (most urban customers would fall into this bracket) and lend individual loans over Rs 25,000. This will ensure that they will not qualify as NBFC MFIs. There will now be a chase for customers in the Rs 50,000 – Rs 100,000 per annum bracket and individual loans appears to be the new direction for the industry.

In the meantime the industry will need to recover existing loans to make this transition. About Rs 20,000 crores has to be recovered, a large chunk from the sub Rs 50,000 segment. Given that there will be a freeze on new loans, one can start to see mass defaults (as repayment typically happened through refinancing of loans) and also, in the absence of new loans, the customers will not see a need to maintain creditworthiness. This remains an issue. The hope is the news of Malegam does not spread entirely to the field and customers continue to repay, however this is unlikely given that new loans have stopped for almost 2 months now and money lenders in AP have already hiked their rates by 100%. If news spreads, a mass default situation similar to the Muslim issue defaults are likely to happen. Perhaps why VM is mustering a lot of cheer on news channels.

Ofcourse, RBI may get wind of this and arbitrarily issue a circular to increase the annual income from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1,00,000. High degree of regulatory risk remains in the sector as through this report (if accepted as is currently), RBI will have signaled the direction of its thought process towards regulation – which is creation of a duopoly/ monopolistic scenario with very few players which will enable closer regulation. This fundamentally precludes the existence of the 50 odd or so MFIs actively present and the 10,000 others registered.

The market is likely to price a high premium for this risk and have low appetites for the sector. Aint looking so good for the Spandanas and Asmithas and Bandhans looking to IPO over the next couple of years.

Movie Review: The Social Network

2010-11-14T00:12:00.000-08:00

This is my first movie review - which is sort of ironic given the post below. A great movie for me is one that pushes the imagination and emotions to its extreme edge such that one is consumed by the experience for days and takes quite some time to get it “out of the system”, so to speak. And every few years, there is always one such movie that is released by creative film makers around the world. The Dark Knight was one such; it took me 3 days of continuous viewing and many days of reading/ talking about it to find peace in the Joker’s outrageous sense of morality. Fight Club was another – a dark, stylish, post modern flick encapsulating our almost programmed participation in a litany of mind less races that have us confusing life for 'stuff'. At the very least, it was a story very crisply told, with great background music, great performances and great direction by David Fincher. His next, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was quite disappointing in that it had not much to offer by way of story telling and was largely a cosmetic celebration of Brad Pitt’s beauty with some great background scores. Social Network is his next where he has finally replaced Brad Pitt with a fairly interesting ensemble cast and is right up his ally in that it begins at the same place of the story of a loner, who did not fit into society due to his many quirks and his spectacular journey of creating something extraordinary that changed the world as he knew it.

On the face of it, the Social Network is the story of Facebook and its Co-Founders Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) and Dustin Moskovitz. It is also the story of the Winklevoz twins (both played Armie Hammer) who claim to have the original idea which was stolen and implemented by Zuckerberg before they could get around to it. However, the film and its script is much more than that. It is at once an introspective look at morality for our time and age and the real price of ambition. Like the Joker, it takes a dark look at the meaning of human interpersonal reactions albeit within the landscape of business, where money and recognition find weight in gold, corrupting innocent notions of right and wrong that are ingrained in simpler academic worlds. It is a fascinating tale of 2 founders of a path breaking idea; one the genius with the alternate vision – the lateral thinker, the game changer, uncontainable and free spirited, driven only by his creation and what it represents and stands for; and the other, the more restrained voice rooted in business reality looking to make economic sense within the architecture of his friend's creative world. The character etching is fascinating and the film never once passes judgment on the right or the wrong - it simply provides enough information for the viewer to work it within his framework of morality - and even if based on some distorted facts, it is largely representative of the world we live in where choices to do the “right” thing are only understood deep inside inside our consciousness where our hearts whisper it out to us with annoying clarity.

Eduardo Saverin was a consultant for the script and from the very beginning, it is almost impossible to not empathize with his character played by Andrew Garfield. He forms the moral compass, the heart and soul for the film as one of its most likable characters; someone who believed in and paid for a promised ride on a magical highway that would soar into the skies; yet found himself deserted mid way through the journey by the driver who found companionship in suspicious strangers along the way that better spoke his language and better painted his pictures.

Eisenberg is outstanding as Zuckerberg, his eyes and his body language convey the compulsions and isolation of a man at the top that is focused on the drive, on taking his paradigm shifting world view of the world forward, for developing it and ensuring all the values it encapsulated and stood for were never compromised along the way. In achieving this, the film highlights the many difficult personal choices he had to make and Eisenberg while giving the character the necessary geek persona also manages to convey the cold ruthlessness, obsessive and defensive character traits that constitute the backbone of his eventual decisions. Yet he is not completely contemptible, his eyes do reflect just that slightest hint of vulnerability and discomfort of understanding exactly what his actions constitute to his friendships, his defiance of money and moneyed peers make him almost heroic and his excitement at meeting Sean Parker, a man among the isolated few that understood his idiom make him endearing despite not wanting too. Rest of the ensemble cast put in solid performances including the Winklevoz twins and the character that plays Larry Summers who is exceptionally brilliant in his limited scenes.

The story is largely told using a juxtaposition of flashbacks on the creation of facebook and the current legal suits facing its founder from his friends and peers – a story where one does know the eventuality upfront but the unfolding of it is narrated almost like a thriller; a story where despite the geekdom in the dialogues, the film manages to have just enough heart and brilliant music to make it one of the more outstanding films of the past couple of years. It is a film of our times that captures the spirit of a generation that isn’t prepared to wait their turn or pay their dues and instead will make the opportunities for themselves or tear it away from the less ambitious. It’s like a gangster film where the young hoods prove themselves to the older wiseguys by doing something audacious despite breaking all sorts of codes of honour. It’s both admirable and threatening, exhilarating and terrifying. However, in this case, the antiheros aren’t left in jail or dead but are left to endlessly refresh a browser to see if an ex-girlfriend has accepted their friend request.

The Movies!

2010-11-13T10:57:00.000-08:00

I LOVEEEEEEEE the movies!!

I enjoy the whole shindig of movie watching – of popcorns, cola, crowds albeit that in an Indian context, it implies sshing other moviegoers who keep cellphones on chatting incessantly and other talkative sorts who don’t get that the rest of us paid good money to watch the film. I follow a typical movie routine – for English movies check IMDB, rottentomatoes for ratings, for hindi movies – check out Rajeev Masand’s and Raja Sen’s ratings (the sachharine sweet diabetic inducing Taran Adarsh and the rest are completely compromised in my opinion to the various industry camps). If they are good ratings, then I go check out the movie without reading any of the reviews. I hate reading reviews or discussing a movie before watching one – I’d rather to go into it with a complete blank canvas and be encompassed into the entirety of the audio visual ride the movie has set out for us. After the entire experience of the movie has been enjoyed, I come back and scan the net for every available piece of information about the movie – on rottentomatoes, imdb faqs, trivia, other reviews (nytimes), cast and director interviews, wiki on the production, making of movies etc etc….this (esp the review reading part where I love to see how others have experienced the movies, the parts I missed out or the reviewers didn’t get) is one of the greatest joys of the experience. Besides discussing it at length with Venkat, my friend and manic movie lover (by an order of magnitude) who has taken great pains to sensitise me to the various filmmakers, movements in film making and aspects of film making I had never thought of earlier (like camera angles or editing or the role of background music that is in the foreground sometimes, among the million other things); not to mention his timeless and priceless gift of pirated downloaded set of all time best 1000 movies (including IMDB top 500 movies of all time) to ensure I had a visual world to keep me sufficiently occupied while he left the country to see the world. And Vinu, who has an innate ability to quantify any subject matter, however abstruse to a crisp and precise rating on 5.

In some cases, if I don’t feel that I couldn’t capture the entirety of the movie in one viewing, I watch it again. And some times, again and again, 3 days in a row like the Dark Knight. Some of my all time favorite movies are The Fight Club, The Dark Knight, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, American Beauty, Shawshank Redemption, A Beautiful Mind and among Indian movies, a lot of the current bunch like Gulal, DevD, Peepli Live, Rang De Basanti, Jab we Met, Taare Zameen Par, Chak De, Sadma, Karthik Calling Karthik etc. Fight Club remains my all time favorite movie and its brilliant director, David Fincher, my all time favorite director - my best paintings have been inspired by Jack, its nameless protagonist which you can find here.

I also enjoy the business of movies and spend a lot of time talking to friends who are insiders, working in production or distribution houses. I check boxofficeindia.com every week, watch komal nahta on etc and bollywood business on zoom to know which film has made how much money. I would love to produce a film one day – there I said it. It is one of those things to do on my bucket list!

So here’s to more reviews of the many memorable movies ahead. I start with the first one, the social network, fittingly by David Fincher.

Drawing...

2010-11-11T09:42:00.000-08:00

Found this amazing letter on drawing on the web..

Dear ....

Think less. Draw more.

When you draw a thing, see it just as that. Not a head, not perspective, not crosshatching, just pure observation as if you’ve never seen it before. The more preconceptions you bring to the drawing, the shittier it will be.

Clear your mind, and start drawing what you see. Start anywhere. I tend to start in the upper left hand corner because I am right handed. I move across observing, recording, until I get to the lower left hand corner. Then I am done.

If my subject is sufficiently complex, this will take me a half hour or more. I go as slowly as I can stand to go. But I don’t know how long it is usually; my left-brain has no sense of time.

As I draw, I avoid evaluation. I avoid thinking of the purpose of the drawing. I avoid commenting on what I am drawing, even in the quality of the line. I am empty and the drawing fills me up. Drawing is meditation, not production. Drawing is entirely in the present with no attempt to create context.

Do not think about style. Add shadows as you see them. But better to avoid shadows all together and stay engaged with the contours of things. When you have done that for months, even years, then add shadows and crosshatching (My pal, d.price has been drawing for a dozen years. Only on his trip to New York last week did he decide to start concentrating on the effects of light. He still almost never uses color). For now, none of that is important. What matters is to see deeply and let your hand respond.

And if you start at huge length before you draw, you risk becoming bored, or forming mental notes, theories, ideas about what you are seeing. The reason to let your hand and pen take over is to shut the hell up, silence the internal voice, the endless chattering of the mind, the distractions, the pointless pontificating that insists on meaning for the meaningless. The moment does not need meaning or context. It just is.

Drawing is about reaching for pure being. Not making pretty pictures to put in frames and on websites. The world doesn’t need more pictures. It needs peace and connection. It needs people who can accept reality and don’t feel compelled to control their environments. If you can look at a boot, at a rotting apple, at car’s worn tire, at an old man’s foot, and see it for what it is, without value or judgement, can see the beauty and particularity of the thing, you will find peace. You will avoid being covetous. You will be happy with what you have. You will accept others more readily, will see the sunshine on a cloudy day.

Life is a wonderful business, though fools blow up London tube stations and sell each other crap and waste time with gossip about movie stars. If you can draw, you will always have a place to go that is beautiful and honest and true. As you sit in an airport you will find pleasure in the folds of a crumpled lunch bag. As you bide your time in a doctor’s waiting room, you will find peace in the arrangement of the shadows on the wall. Even without putting ink on paper, you will be able to slip in to Drawing Mind.

The point is not what your lines look like or how accurate your crosshatching might be.
The point is not the drawings on the page or the pages in the book.
The point is not the opinions of others who love/hate/ignore those lines you made on the page.
The point is not the money you make selling your work to galleries or publishers.
The point of practicing your craft is not to rise in the rankings of those who draw. It’s not to have your style dominate (sorry, Dan!).

The point is to more easily gain access to the moment, to the deeper more peaceful recesses of your Self.

The point is to live as well and as fully as you can today, right now, whether your pen is in your hand or not.

The point is to See and to Be.

Back to Blogging

2009-03-08T11:37:00.000-07:00

Its been a long time since I painted. I think, its been a long time since I wrote, blogged or did anything creative. I think ever since I moved to Bangalore, I have not felt isolation. I have not felt the emptiness of space, the need to confront my thoughts in the sharp cacophony of silence. No doubt, I have enjoyed companionship. But I also have a dual need of isolation. I am not clear on how I should manage this. With routine, families, responsibilities - how does one find some time to be truly alone? Travel usually affords some alone time. But I am not clear on how to manage the routine from taking over.

I have enjoyed the last couple of weeks of being alone. Its strange, the first few days were difficult. But I have settled into me, myself and realised how much I have missed this. I feel more centered, more in harmony. So here are the things I promise to do over the next few months:

1. Complete a difficult painting composition. I want to move away from the landscapes and still lives and do something that is compositionally complex.

2. Blog more about thoughts and ideas. I have a theory of equilibrium, I want to write a post on that sometime.

3. Stay focused on the start up. And also write about it.

4. Not get my many complicated relationships get bigger than me. Sometimes, its a lot harder just being female - just way too many nuanced emotions to cope with. I promise to be on top, for once :-)

Hopefully, I will write more on random thoughts and ideas. I have missed this.

New blog

2008-08-16T13:39:00.000-07:00

Hey peoples (those few that still visit this haunted space)...have started a new blog....http://inksmemoirs.blogspot.com/ to document the startup story....
Thanks for visiting and love u all.
Ink

Pledge at HAL

2008-04-23T02:21:00.000-07:00

Women taking a pledge at HAL, Bangalore
"....to improve the lives of our families and children...Khuda Gawah"

More Field Visits

2008-04-23T02:15:00.000-07:00

Chamrajpet Chawls

Been travelling in the hot sun all over Bangalore. Have visited slums in Chamrajpet, HAL, Halasuru, Koramangala, Yeshwantpur so far.....large number of field visits remain. No better way to understand the issues of the poor unless one spends a decent amount of time with them. Some more pictures attached. Views on micro finance as a poverty alleviation tool are crystallizing...will put up a post soon....

Update!!

2008-04-20T04:12:00.000-07:00

Quick life update - have joined Ujjivan, an urban micro finance company as the marketing head. Job is to create financially inclusive products for our customers, who are working poor women.
Some pics of my first field visit:

The hill

2008-02-08T04:02:00.000-08:00

An old friend from a frozen time sent in this poem.

A : In memory of my wonderful times with you, I am posting this for posterity here. Love.

The Hill

This normative hill
like all others
is transparently accessible,
out there
and in the mind,
not to be missed
except in peril of one's life.

Do not muse on it
from a distance:
it's not remote
for the view only,
it's for the sport
of climbing.

What the hill demands
is a man
with forces flowering
as from the crevices
of rocks and rough surfaces
wild flowers
force themselves towards the sun
and burn
for a moment. 

How often must I
say to myself
what I say to others:
trust your nerves—
in conversation or in bed
the rhythm comes.
And once you begin
hang on for life.

What is survival?
What is existence?
I am not talking about
poetry. I am
talking about
perishing outrageously
and calling it
activity.

I say: be done with it.
I say: you've got to love that hill.
Be wrathful, be impatient
that you are not
on the hill. Do not forgive
yourself or other,
though charity
is all very well.

Do not rest
in irony or acceptance.
Man should not laugh
when he is dying.
In decent death
you flow into another kind of time
which is the hill
you always thought you knew.

    -- Nissim Ezekiel

Packing

2007-08-26T05:16:00.000-07:00

Today is one of the last weekends in London. Moving countries can be overwhelming, I discovered. As I was telling a friend, M, earlier, I have moved 8 homes in the last 4 years! And travelled to 15 countries in the last 2 years - Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, France, England, Wales, Scotland, Spain, Morocco, Sweden, Norway, America and good ol India ! Have taken over 60 flights in 2 years and done the India-London leg alone around 14 times, Lon-NY 3 times, Lon-Paris over 15 times.

Much of the world remains to be seen. I am very keen on doing the Far East, Japan, Cambodia and Africa. Europe now seems largely similar - although each country was unique, I found a common vein running through all and soon there came a degree of predictability on what to expect - however Eastern Europe could be potentially interesting. The travel bug bit and took its pound of flesh, however is now satiated for the moment and hibernating for a bit. The sense of 'hurry' to see the world appears to have calmed down for now and there is a realization that a good part of life remains to see and absorb the rest of our beautiful world.

The last 3 months have been far too overwhelming at work to do any travel or to paint or write anything meaningful or even attempt to play the guitar. It was a tough period of complex negotiations, running the last lap of a very long race, a time when I internalized the identity of a banker - very strange this, only when the end was near did I begin to feel like one. Well, I guess one begins to appreciate only when the time becomes obviously finite. It was also a time of a painter's block, writer's block, music block...basically a creative glut. It is quite interesting how the mind needs such a huge amount of space and a sense of being free emotionally and mentally to be able to observe and create. This is going to be a challenge in the coming months. Entrepreneurship, in its very definition has a strong sense of ownership to the job and in that sense; it is going to be hard to ‘feel free and disengaged' to dissolve into a different kind of a creative space.

My father often reminds me of the need to have a 'primary sense of identity' ie where all other personas are complementary – his distilled words of wisdom to prevent internal chaos and live in harmony. In the past, as a teenager, I have thought of pursing the 'arts' and giving a life to it and many times wondered with an inevitable tinge of regret if it was a right decision to pursue the completely contrarian path of accounting, economics, business and finance. Over time however, it was quite clear that I would not be happy being an observer or a commentator (any art as they say, is after all is a mirror to one self and society). In my head, I wanted to walk the war, 'do', make a difference, however tiny. And I am now quite sold to this idea. So, at the end of one half of a life, after drifting through many worlds, I can say with some certainty that I have 'found'. Only the manner of execution remains to be discovered. So I am glad in retrospect that I did study business and major in finance – IIMA equipped me with enough wings to be able to fly towards a different horizon.

Back to the packing now. Some more statistics - over a hundred books, 20 paintings, a million dvds....in 2 years. In retrospect, how did I find the time to manage all this??? Time sure was intense.....

Happy, happy..to be back. Tra la la ...

Free Fall

2007-08-21T03:23:00.000-07:00

Its a lazy Tuesday morning. The end of my last deal. The beginning of the free fall... Its strange 'not' to have to stress about funds flowing or numbers adding....not to have to manage consultant speak, investor queries, p&l calculations, excel models, markets crashing, spreads widening...all marking the end of one phase of life in the fast lane.

Ystd, I had a long dinner with my vp. 6 glasses of champagne and lots of conversations later...she convinced me, it got no better with time. Work hard for one half of your life in an attempt to buy freedom, to truly do what you want to do, but then spend the next half being bound sub-conciously to a different kind of routine....

Its surreal almost. Have waited for so long for this day, cant believe its actually here.

India, here I come....

Scared...

2007-08-18T16:20:00.001-07:00

Saw lagaan today. Yes, I know. Didnt see this historical movie for so long.

Scared. Having lived a life so far away from rural India, can I return?? Will I be an alien in my own land......?

Can I do anything worthwhile...?

But then, is it worth living without finding out? I want to find out.

...And one year later!

2007-08-04T10:19:00.000-07:00

I have jumped!! From the firm hold of my job as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs International, London into the world of unknown…..following a vague notion of fulfilment …Of hope, love and change. Of a desire to contribute, to make that bit, however tiny, of difference. It is an open wide field with infinite paths of various colors…I am now only familiar with the shades that I will choose, the definitive path is yet to be discovered.

I have resigned this week from GS and taken the plunge. I will be returning to Bangalore, India by first week of September and looking around for a bit. Spending some time rediscovering roots. With this ends my time as a hard nosed banker. I have had a most interesting peek into this very exciting, even if void world. It has been a world so contrasted to the one in my thoughts, that I have often felt quite external to it…like watching a movie – a passiveness. Have seen big games played out at close quarters. Have travelled, met the most interesting people and made many friendships. Worked the 120 hour weeks. Complex analysis, tougher negotiations. All in a world where to optimise is to dehumanise.

I didn’t anticipate the smell of freedom would be so delicately sweet. It feels light and truly joyous!!!!

I am finally free.

My new guitar!!!!!!!!

2007-05-28T04:11:00.000-07:00

The Fender Stratocaster.....a dream guitar!

Sleeping with Others

2007-05-25T05:52:00.000-07:00

A beautiful poem by Stephen Dunn, Pulitzer Prize winner, 2001.

Sleeping With Others

Because memory and its intrusive nostalgias
lie down with us,
it helps to say we love each other,

each declaration a small erasure, the past
for a while reduced to a trace,
the heart's palimpsest to a murmur.

Still, our solitudes are so populated
that sometimes after sex
we know it's best to be quiet -

time having instructed us in the art
of the unspoken,
of in the sufficient eloquence

of certain sighs. Regret shows up
unpredictably,
sleeping with, but never between us.

Like joy it doesn't stay long, quickly tiring
of the language
used in its name, wanting only itself.

We've made this bed. We're old enough
to know sorrow may visit
now and then, and that the world slides in

at will - ugly, dark, confident it belongs.
Nothing to do but let it
touch us, allow it to hurt, and remind

'Meaning'

2007-05-23T01:42:00.000-07:00

Dean Harker at S's graduation at Wharton gave a beautiful speech on the role of business leaders in today's environment. Quite a contrast from Laxmi Mittal who spoke thereafter on a long, pain-stakingly detailed account of the Mittal-Arcelor deal.

An excerpt of the speech is as below:

John Gardner, a great academic and civic leader, said this about meaning:

“Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life.

“You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something.

“The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure – as the world measures success or failure – is of less account.”

On a separate note :-) , started playing the guitar. Will put up pictures over the weekend.

Parting

2007-05-09T14:04:00.000-07:00

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

- Emily Dickinson

Motivation and beyond..

2007-05-06T13:53:00.000-07:00

Have finally joined a painting class. My first professional training ever in oil-painting. It looks like a large commitment in terms of time (every sat 10-5pm for 10 Saturdays) – given the insanity of time pressure on the weekdays (Ah! The pitfalls of an investment banking job), weekends are crucial to numb down the high frequency pitch of the mind and indulge in a contrasted world of calmness, utter solitude and peace. Fitting this routine on weekends is going to require a certain amount of rigour and commitment to the art – I hope I am able to live it out.

First class was satisfying. The studio is large with big windows and as spring has now set in, there is lot of sunlight through the day. Alison (www.harperart.com) has a beautiful mind – it is wonderful to finally meet someone in flesh and blood who shares this deep love and passion for the art. I did a still life of three peppers in complementary colors for this class - will put it up next week once I get the painting back home. I learnt about color toning and also did a painting for the first time without turps. It was not easy to do the detailing without a paint thinner but not as hard as I imagined either. Loved the overall tone and texture of the painting eventually. Alison made me do a canvas wash in acrylic in a complementary color of the actual background before I began the painting. I had never experimented with acrylics and oils together on canvas before - loved the overall warm feel and the painting really started coming together due to that wash. Also learnt to avoid too much detailing in the beginning but to work on all parts of a painting parallely and get into levels of detailing for the painting as a whole (this was initially anti intuitive to me – need to unlearn quite a bit and consiously control instincts to get it right). For the next class, I need to do a black and white painting.

Also joined an online guitar class recommended by F, www.nextlevelguitar.com . The teacher, Dave seems to have a very simplistic approach to guitar learning and has taken the fear out of my mind. He makes it a lot of fun. The last time I tried learning to play a guitar (on IIMA campus), it was a disaster - mostly due to a combination of lack of practise as a result of severe case of bumming out and fear (not really sure why). This time, there is the benefit of unlimited runs of the online videos and besides, Dave has dumbed it down sufficiently for beginners, so looks like a lot of fun. So far, the lessons have been quite exciting really. Need to buy a good electric guitar.

It was also evaluation week at work. Usual reviews - nothing unexpected except that what was in my head so far is now apparent to the world. Motivation or rather lack of it.....apparently, they have not seen anyone ranked as high on technicals and productivity to be ranked as low on motivation.... so now its an open secret!

More travel lined up for next week. Can’t wait to meet S and A at Philly next weekend. Until then – Adios!

Marrakech

2007-04-30T15:50:00.000-07:00

Arabian Shooters on Horses at the 'Pasha'

Snake charmers at the Souq

An artifact store at the Souq

The market behind the 'Kutoubia'

Cactii in the blue garden

Spice shop at the souq

Our horse carriage ride around the city

(Blog to follow)

Of conflict, free will and Marrakech

2007-04-22T07:09:00.000-07:00

What would life be without conflict, I often wonder… one with no dichotomy in choices. A friend once said, you are open to vulnerability only if you allow yourself to feel. A life of vacant emotion or profound pain…..? Of stability or free-will? Few months to go….time and this blog will soon tell.

As an aside, a lot of travel lined up these next few months..so more blogs to follow:

Visit to Marrakech next week for 4 days on an office offsite
Visit to Philly, Pennsylvania mid May for S’s convocation at Wharton
Visit to Switzerland end of May for S’ post convo celebration
Short weekend visit again to Paris

Cant wait to do Marrakech, have a 3 mnth visa. So might do Casablanca later as well.

Until then, adios....will keep painting.

Rant...

2007-03-22T10:10:00.000-07:00

Its been a while since I painted. Been incredibly busy this past month.....its proving to be hard to keep the balance between the harshness of my day job and prevent spillage into the constrasted world of free thought and expression. Work almost resembles a battlefield these days...its the last lap on a couple of deals, so cut throat negotiation time, we are all gathering all our energy and making the final last incredible push....

Painting in the meantime has almost completely stopped and this rant is an attempt to stem the guilt.....a promise to start one today.

I, Me, Myself..........

2007-03-18T14:01:00.005-07:00

A bit on indulgence....on a bored Sunday morning....

1. Were you named after anyone? No

2. Do you wish on stars? Yes. Also wish on fallen eyelashes

3. When did you last cry? Err…today. Remembering Mom

4. Do you like your handwriting? Its alright. Sis’ handwriting is the tops, mine is a distant second

5. What is your favourite meat? Salmon

6. What is your most embarrassing CD on your shelf? Shakira

7. If you were another person, would YOU be friends with you? Sure

8. Are you a daredevil? A small one

9. How do you release anger? A walk, talk, thoughts and tears ...and sometimes an episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S (ditto for the bluey days with chocolate added)

10. Where is your second home? My apt in London, Home in Mumbai is always first home (IIM Ahmedabad would be the only other 'home')

11. Do you trust others easily? Nope, it takes a long long time

12. Passions/ Interests? Painting, blogging, reading, poetry, reform, movies, cooking, chatting…..

13. What class in school/college do you think is totally useless? Some of the geography classes. Didn’t do much for me :-)

14. Do you use sarcasm a lot? Yeah

15. Have you ever been in a mosh pit? No

16. What do you look for in a guy/girl? Freedom of thought, and well, just chemistry :-)

17. Would you bungee jump? Would be horrified at that moment, closest to anything adventurous was para sailing (under pressure)

18. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? Never, yeah lazy me :-)

19. What’s your favourite ice cream? Belgium chocolate..yummmm

20. What are your favourite colours? Black, i find it mysterious, all encompassing…..strong...

21. What are your least favourite things? Routine of any sort, esp waking up early to go to work

22. How many people do you have a crush on right now? No crushes really, a few seem ‘interesting’

23. Who do you miss most right now? Amma’s food

24. What are you listening to right now? Floyd

25. If you were a crayon, what colour would you be? Black (would like to think for reasons in 20 above)

26. What is the weather like right now? Chilly

27. Last person you talked to on the phone? An ex

28. The “first” thing you notice about the opposite sex? Height, fingers, eyes

29. Do you like the person who sent you this? No-one did

30. How are you today? Going strong, despite a cold

31. Favourite non alcoholic drink? Masala chai

32. Favourite alcoholic drink? Jack Daniels on the rocks

33. Natural hair colour? Black

34. Eye colour? Black

35. Wear contacts? Yeah, practically blind without ‘em

36. Siblings? 3

37. Favourite month? June…fond childhood memories of the first rain

38. Favourite food? Dal chawal

39. Favourite day of the year? ???

40. Have you ever been too shy to ask someone out? Nope

41. Scary movies or happy endings? Happy endings. Always happy endings.

42. Summer or winter? Winter

43. Holi or Diwali? Diwali

44. Do you like your name? Don’t get me started on that one…grrrr

45. What book/magazine are you reading? The Cold War

46. What’s on your mouse pad? Using a laptop

47. What did you watch on TV last night? Koffee with Karan (ps addicted)

48. Favourite Smell? Ange Ou Demons, Givenchy

49. Have you ever regretted breaking up with someone? No

50. Most embarassing thing you have experienced: Several, when I lose my way 10 yards from home, when I cry inconsolably at the slightest emotional scenes in movies…..

Of Shilpa Shetty, Dignity and Big Brotha...

2007-01-22T07:55:00.000-08:00

For the whole of last week there has been no escaping this. Britain seems to have erupted into a national debate over the alleged racist remarks directed towards Indian actress Shilpa Shetty in a reality TV show ‘Celebrity Big Brother’. It is everywhere – in offices, cabs, retail outlets, parks - basically any public place/ event involving people greater than one; not mentioning the media and its relentless coverage of the issue. Being Indian hasn't helped - every non Indian friend/ acquaintance gingerly approaches the topic to know the ‘rational’ (yeah!) Indian sentiment – Were Jade Goody and her ilk racist or was it just a case of bullying? Are Indians and a big part of the British public over-reacting?? Or is the UK rapidly turning into an intolerant society??

Now I have no hang-ups in admitting that I enjoy the occasional Vanity Fair or Heat :-) – it's a world shockingly different from my own and is a welcome break after heavy days of intellectual snobbery. But I have never been able to get through a single episode of Big Brother until this flare-up. I actually don't own a TV (inherently lazy self needs just the slightest excuse to spend the whole day in bed), but the one episode I did begin to watch was appalling to say the least. The entire format of this kind of reality TV is sickening – the producers revel in display of human nature at its worst extremes masquerading it as ‘entertainment’ and even worse, it actually seems to capture sufficient eye balls to keep their purses ringing.

Shilpa Shetty has however changed it all. 6 hours of intense CBB watching and several votes for Jade’s eviction (ah! The new-age patriotism) later, there is now an intense need to voice an opinion on the subject :-) Every Black, Asian, Hispanic, German, French, even Scottish dudes have been hogging prime time expressing their views specifically on whether the comments on CBB had an implied racial slur and more generally on whether UK has become an intolerant racist society. With true desi Indian blood running through my veins, it will be spiteful not to have my 10 pennies worth :-)! Besides, Ms Shetty and moi (and the gals, you know who you are) come from the same under-grad college (Bombay's geek hangout - Podar). So here’s the low-down...

To be fair to Jade Goody, she did come across as a far more genuine person than Shilpa and between the two of them, it was definitely Shilpa with a chip on the shoulder. But hey, this is entertainment on television. Why must there be brownie points for being ‘real’?? And come’ on! The show is ‘Celebrity’ big brother!! By definition, the people involved are ones who have lived larger than life personalities for most part of their lives and fundamentally come in with inflated egos. The social situation is attempted to be made interesting by the fact that people who have lived unreal lives for most part get down to a house of managed reality – where they need to cook their own food, wash their clothes and generally don't have a bevy of helpers of various kinds around. So, what was Jade Goody thinking?? Jade herself is a product of reality TV – she participated in BB 4 years back and is now supposedly the 25th most influential person in the world - turning in $8 million per annum top line for sale of perfumes, TV shows and an assorted other bunch of solutions riding on her brand!! (And I have spent half my life getting educated and am spending the rest apparently in building dreams – seriously! Should have taken the easier route to fame!!) But nothing, really nothing excuses attacking someone on their ethnic origin. Eating with the fingers and "who knows where she put them first???" Bleaching face because "oh do you have a stubble like a man??" And because ‘"she wants to be white’’ “F*** off home to your ‘shack’??” Well, pretty racist and almost unforgivable I say.

Is this a mirror to the British society or generally the world per se?? Just purely going by the extent of sentiment this has aroused, it would be hard to say ... Several thousand people seem to have taken these comments as a personal assault, almost as if it was their personal angst now magnified on the screen. Tolerance appears to be limited not just in Western societies, but also in societies across the world (including Indian) for anything that is ‘different’. The fear of the ‘unknown’ is a rather powerful one and appears to instill suspicion, mistrust in many. For some, it is a function of the insecurities within. Information partly seems to break these barriers, it at least resolves the ‘unknown’ part of the equation (One of my close pals here is English, but is also one of the better traveled people I know). For the other, there is little help – it is so much a product of one’s upbringing and surroundings, and to the extent that is less than perfect, there will always continue to be an undercurrent of friction.

As for Shilpa, well, looking forward to seeing her on every other issue of Vanity Fair and Heat :-) She is a celebrity in the making here....$6 big ones for appearing on the show and the counter is still ticking for a lot - lot - more.....

The Word

2007-01-22T03:25:00.000-08:00

For all those days of being caught up - a little something from today's minstrels. Loved it.

"The Word"

Down near the bottom
of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,

between "green thread"
and "broccoli" you find
that you have penciled "sunlight."

Resting on the page, the word
is as beautiful, it touches you
as if you had a friend

and sunlight were a present
he had sent you from some place distant
as this morning -- to cheer you up,

and to remind you that,
among your duties, pleasure
is a thing,

that also needs accomplishing
Do you remember?
that time and light are kinds

of love, and love
is no less practical
than a coffee grinder

or a safe spare tire?
Tomorrow you may be utterly
without a clue

but today you get a telegram,
from the heart in exile
proclaiming that the kingdom

still exists,
the king and queen alive,
still speaking to their children,

- to any one among them
who can find the time,
to sit out in the sun and listen.

-- Tony Hoagland

Amsterdam

2007-01-16T16:17:00.000-08:00

Va va wooooooooommmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Absolutely stunning!! Very close to being my favourite European city so far. For such a long time, Amsterdam to my mind represented sleaze, dope, the Red Light District and general party place. Oh how mistaken I was!! My work-related research tells me that Amsterdam is THE most popular tourist destination in Europe, with Barcelona coming in second. After this trip, I am not surprised.

Amsterdam is all that it is touted to be. It’s a city that embraced very forward ideas and legalised prostitution, same sex marriages, abortion etc way before any of their counterparts worldwide. Yet, it is so much, so much more..To begin with, little is written about what a truly charming city this is. ‘Venice of the north’ some call it. Other say, Venice must be called, ‘Amsterdam of the South’. It is surprising though – Venice has found so many artists appreciating it – atleast a million paintings done so far on the charming little canals in Venice, not so much on Amsterdam though. It is a city that has been largely built by reclaiming land from the sea. It has a few hundred canals with a few thousand bridges. Something about water makes me insane – it just adds so much character to a city. Every few minutes of walking and one comes across a water body, complete with beautiful trees around it. This place must really come alive in summer, there is so much vegetation and I am told that the streets are lined with Tulips.

The next truly beautiful aspect I loved is the architecture. One of my favourite things about London (and not so much about NYC or Mumbai) is the white period buildings, done in 3-4 storeys. White is a predominant color in London’s architecture as is brown in Rome and green in Stockholm. But in Amsterdam, red it is. The same beautiful brick buildings in various shades and hues of reddish brown. Brick buildings similar to the Gothic architecture, but done in a very unique Dutch style. Again, like London, no high rises – most buildings are 3-4 storied. The tram is a big mode of public transport and streets are quite narrow and again mostly of stone (not concrete) – again adding onto that mystical character of the city. Overall, it was a treat to the eyes – I have fallen in love with this city.

People of all ethnicities live here – the city is very crowded unlike Greece. Housing has been a predominant problem, so people resorted to building house boats – there are 5,000 house boats in Amsterdam, with water, electricity and other necessary connections!! Food is never a problem, the huge inflow of tourists have resulted into plenty of Chinese, Mexican, Indian food joints all over the city.

I am a self confessed Museum Geek, so spent a large part of one day at the Van Gogh museum. Now this is a must visit, even if you don’t really enjoying art so much. It has about 200 paintings from various stages of Van Gogh’s life. Van Gogh and Rembrant are the Dutch contributions to the Great Masters. Something about Van Gogh’s life is so disturbing – the story of a loser in his living, but genius after death. A story of a knowledge of something powerful, the ability to see and touch the other world….the sensitivity of a true artist, yet trapped in the frustration of the lack of recognition, an inability to communicate to the world…..yet such sheer genius in work……a story of it having gone wrong…unrequited love, unfulfilled dreams …yet spectacular beauty in the mind. I can go on and on about Van Gogh – one of the most engaging painters of all time, truly one of the revered Great Master, his work inspired the whole Expressionist movement thereafter. Some of the famous Expressionists even followed in the master’s footsteps and suffered from a series of mental derangements towards the later part of their lives. I think Van Gogh’s tragic real life story in many ways was a point of identification for many people worldwide….his unhappy life, yet his mind – oh his beautiful mind reflected in his paintings…his thick brush strokes, rough painting style….the desperation, frustration, hope – all reflected in each and every stroke…..The classical masters were excellent technicians, brilliant with an expression of reality as is. Van Gogh was not high on technique, but the expression of reality in its raw emotional sense as he perceived it….expression of emotions through the nature….hope for eg, through a full blossomed almond tree, insanity through swirling Cyprus trees…..the rawness is there in his paint, in his colors….this is carried forward in the Expressionist movement in paintings. Bright colors, vivid expressions – starkness of reality in its pyschic emotional sense. Van-Gogh himself was a post-impressionist, drawing many painting techniques from the impressionist era. Spent a 100 euro buying every print I could of his paintings. Apparently, he could sell only one painting while he was alive. Such a pity.

Anyways, I am coming back here again in summer…..Amsterdam is up there….definitely go visit if you plan to do a European tour sometime.

Greece

2007-01-16T12:48:00.000-08:00

January has been a good month so far. Plenty of travelling as most bankers are just returning from vacations, so work has been generally on the lull. So, finally have been finding time to resume my travels.

R, who has finished lazing around after that 2 year vacation called the MBA, has now started her consulting assignments. Latest one being in Greece, where R is currently frauding some unsuspecting enterprise of millions of pounds :-) - reminds me of Warren Buffet’s opening letter in the 2005 Berkshire Hathway Annual Report – well, I promised never to bring the investment banking world to this blog – so suffice to say it was something about how consultants, bankers and the rest of the ‘helper’ class are generally upto no good :-) and should be cleansed from the system. Interesting write-up, but cause of much controversy as BH owns significant stakes in several of the ‘helper’ companies and shareholders were not pleased! Anyways, coming back to R, we realised that despite 23 years of speaking almost every day with each other, we had never done any travel together….So, we decided to make the most of R’s client and planned a quick weekend trip to Greece. S, our dear friend, with whom we did our last trip to Italy together is in Philly, still enjoying the 2 year holiday in Wharton and was sorely missed :-) Ok, so were B, Sm and A before you start complaining :-)) Gaah...Women!!!

I find exploring places with friends/ family to be quite a different experience from visitng places alone. For one, the nights are longer – unless you want to experiment in potentially interesting ways ;-) But despite being unmoulded generally, years of living in Bombay have made me quite uptight about dealing with the fishy category (‘Machlis’ as R refers to the lot :-) ), enough experiences in the past have done their bit to ward me off late night ventures. Second, the sense of connection with a place appears to be much stronger when one is exploring in isolation. A completely free enjoyment - perhaps silence and company of one’s thoughts makes the not so obvious stand out. Third, if you are an arty museum geek like I am, you can spend days standing and staring at paintings without any feeling of guilt :-) Having said that, the truly wonderful thing about travelling with someone is that the trip is always associated with the someone and adds on beautifully to the repertoire of many wonderful shared memories.

Anyways, our Greek friends (a total of 2) and lonely planet recommended a maximum of a day's stay at Athens, so we decided to spend the next day exploring some of the other Greek islands. As they say, Greece is really about the Acropolis and the islands. The country has been invaded so many times by the Romans, the Turks etc that very little of their rich heritage has been preserved. The Acropolis is quite spectacular, it is one of the things to knock off on the list of things to see, but much of the architecture is in ruins. The Partheon had to be reconstructed several times over to restore its beauty. The Acropolis is constructed on top of a hill and can be viewed from most parts of Athens, at night it is spectacularly lit up and really stands out as a beautiful monument.

Athens as a city is quite well constructed – wide roads resulting into shocking speeds of automobiles (R and I have miraculously escaped seeing our ends on foreign soil – several times over. With our constant chatter and consequent absent mindedness of the existence and purpose of traffic lights, we have only slightly missed instant death!). But it is far from being comparable to the richness of Rome, for eg, another city wih equally rich heritage, but the Italians have done a great job of preserving their past.

Streets in Athens are covered with orange trees, its quite pretty to see little trees full of oranges all over the city. Vegetarians would find it really tough, very few non-Europeans live here and hence an Italian restaurant would be your best bet to a good meal, unless of course, you fancy the Greek salad with tons of Feta cheese as your staple diet :-). The population is predominantly Greek orthodox, the Roman and Turkish invasions have not resulted into any sizeable Roman Catholic or Muslim population. But eastern influences are seen in many of the Greek artwork – vibrant red and blue colors with Arabic designs in the porcelain ware, handicrafts, shawls and other artwork which are sold in every little street tourist shop.

The other interesting thing was the Greek alphabets. We are all familiar with the many Greek alphabets from school math days – the alpha, beta, gamma, lambda, pie, epsilon, sigmas and the rest – but memory has always placed each of these alphabets individually. Seeing it come together in words was quite bizarre to the eye :-). Learnt that the first letter of these words is indeed how the alphabet is spelt ie A in Greek is written as alpha, beta stands for B, sigma for S, pie for p and so on. Quite amusing.

One thing that has to be mentioned is the Greek male obsession with leather jackets!!! Every alternate man on the street has the trademark leather jacket on. The female equivalent of this is fur. Greek women apparently love having a little fur stitched onto their overcoats, many times its just fur all the way. And a significant portion of the people are constantly seen with ciggies in their mouth – apparently smoking is permissible even in offices, let alone public places. Cabbies don’t think twice about lighting up even when they are driving you, most times they are happy to offer a smoke to you as well.

Day 2 was spent in a cruise to one of the Greek islands Hydra. A very pretty little town. R and me decided to get to our adventurous best and huffed and puffed our way up to the top of the mountain which constitutes this island. We were rewarded with a spectacular view of the sea from the top, v panoramic. But the island was filled with atleast a gazillion cats!!!! I have never seen so many cats together at one place ever – of all shapes, sizes and colors. R, who is a cat lover since time immemorial was at most times walking around like pied piper with a stream of cats in tow behind. Lonely planet had mentioned sad-eyed cats in the Acropolis (though the one R petted was far from being sad eyed and left R with a nice scratch to show for affection!), but this was an island where there were more cats, sad-eyed or otherwise than people!!

And yes, for that one person who was enquiring (you know who you are), didnt meet any Greek Gods :-) Atleast, none yet...

Anyways, that was the end of one quick Greece visit. Off to Amsterdam next week, let see what the Dutch are like! Some pics below.....

Snapshot of Hydra

The Plaka - a pretty little street near the Acropolis

The Acropolis - as seen from the city

The Acropolis - close up of the Partheon

Two Cities

2007-01-11T14:01:00.000-08:00

A recent business visit to New York City re-inforced everything I felt on my first short stay 2 years back – the similarities with my hometown, Bombay. I find it truly incredible that 2 cities so far apart in geography are yet so close in spirit. The smell of the air, pulse of the people, buzz in the environment is unmistakably identical. A thoroughbred Bombayite (will still take a while to get to Mumbaikar, lived out of Bombay for most part after it was rechristened to Mumbai), it was an instant feeling of home from the very moment I stepped out of JFK. Home at a magnified scale. Much taller buildings, much longer cars, much more oversized food portions, a lot less in your face poverty. But similar voices – of dreams, hope - of a better tomorrow. Silent noises of survival.

A home I have now grown away from......where I now long for the sounds of silence, stillness....a softer existence. Often wonder if these modernised sophisticated societies, standing as testimony to man's glory of progress, development have finally resulted in a net positive towards that elusive pursuit of happiness. Fulfilment, almost mockingly, appears to lie embedded in simpler realities. Ah, well, that's another story, another post.

The day is done...

2006-11-25T09:52:00.000-08:00

A simple beautiful one by Longfellow.

The Day Is Done

The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Democracy, civilisation and other things...

2006-10-31T17:50:00.000-08:00

Its been a roller coaster day.

Just this morning, I was reading an interesting article by Amartya Sen - an analysis of democracy and its impact on India. The article can be found here http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/jod/10.3sen.html Although I dont completely agree with all of it, it does make for an interesting read.

However, the reason for this post at 2am in the morning (travails of a banker's life) is another article I came across on the GreatBong's blog http://greatbong.net/2006/10/31/justice/ . The main article in reference can be found here http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-222682,curpg-2.cms

I feel disturbed, troubled, helpless, pained, agitated ....what kind of civilised society are we talking about here??? At what level and scale does this function in India?? I wonder about the sheer futility of debating the relative merits and demerits of a form of governance, when it has collapsed completely at a grassroot level in case of incidents such as this one. Where basic notions of humanity have been dispensed as a 'majority of people' felt a gruesome act such as this one was appropriate.......

Stockholm

2006-10-19T16:57:00.000-07:00

Barcelona (more pics)

2006-10-19T16:09:00.000-07:00

Barcelona

2006-10-19T02:12:00.000-07:00

New beginnings

2006-10-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

Will keep this one short – simply put, this blog will be the farty companion to my other blog http://inkkognito.blogspot.com/ (which I have decided to use only for paintings). The usual travelogues, poetry, opinions, thoughts, random trivia to follow shortly....