Jet trails

are on a journey to a loved one.. are seeking thrills in paradise. could be returning home to family.. or following oft-tread 'kaching' trails. each wisp has its own story.

contrails are one of the many new finds for me here. straight lines have rarely looked so beautiful, outside of a kandinsky.

some romance the skies in faith, and some dissolve hastily into the blue. some diffuse, while others obediently follow their drummer.

lines that are never eternal, and yet..

.. one leaves you with a memory, that has its own story.

Closer

take a look at 'Closer' to see what i mean in my post below.

a stellar cast (J. Roberts, N. 'awesome' Portman., J. Law, C. Owen) frames an at once searing and melancholic (if overstated) look at the fragility, jealousies, betrayal and compromises that seem to tinge more and more contemporary relationships; fast times at modern high, if you will.

love, anyone?

i wanted to write a post about love, and relationships between men and women; try and express all my current bewilderment and astonishment at what it can pull us to do, with all its beauty and tortuousness; how it can be ephemeral, and only rarely forever. and how we sometimes leave all logic and reason at the bedside, to 'believe' and 'have faith' in someone else to work together with - even out of our usual way - for a better tomorrow. and perhaps, day after.

however when i sit down to put words together, i'm left confounded by my and other people's reactions on sticky romantic wickets, and can form no mind-blastingly original insight on the tragedy of love. it is there for all to see, but for few to understand. the worst of our silliness, immaturity, insecurities, and emotional imbalances can be out, and sometimes it's not pretty, but we keep doing it?

yes, love works; but to find it, and to keep it pure - what price, these? or is there at all any such thing as pure love? is it often only a curious mix of comfort, fancy, and compatibility and we are only too happy to name it 'love'? also, it is mostly conditional; most people have no idea when they talk of unconditional love. either way, we bandy around the word too carelessly.

or am i being needlessly cynical, and need only wait till i bask in its blissful euphoria again, to forget about this post?

happy valentine's day, everyone!

Extreme Living in the Noughties

A trilogy of Life, Cricket and Everything Else as lived through the Noughties - A decade non-review.

So here's 'Life'

I don't know about you, but it was an overwhelmingly eventful decade for me. 10 years that started with a bust, then led to emergence of giant new economies, and finally culminated with bankruptcies of some of the finer institutions that we have built. Years that were symptomatic of the rise and fall of Dubai; a decade that saw WTC being obliterated, our cities viciously bombed and two countries being blitzed to hell; that began with the Ultimate Redneck in charge and ended with a suave and articulate black man leading the free world. It was that kind of a decade.

These were also years when my country matured a little more and learnt how to move on. India got a shiny new wallet, and bought and sold land and shares. It decided to adopt the Congress and an Italian lady, mingled with nuclear scientists and Oxford economists and got thrown state dinners by the afore-mentioned articulate gentleman. It learned how to live with short-skirts and homosexuals, and with its daughters working late or riding in cars with boys. We loosened up a little, and only wanted more ice in our drinks. That and some telly-time full of soaps, breaking news and Sehwag. All of course, when we were not talking on the 'mobile', or wondering what wonders this internet could possiby not behold.

It has been joyous and frustrating, efficient and heart-wrenching living the noughties. It's a complex bundle of contradictions thrown at you like a grenade. The world is a dangerous place these days - terror attacks, global flus, climate change and all that, and yet it is dynamic enough for a financial crisis that almost bought us to our knees, to blow over in 2 years or some. If there are covert terror networks and military strife in some parts, scores of first-generation billionaires are creating employment and cities like Shanghai are developing in others. You always seem to be a step away from both -the rainbow and doomsday.

This decade did not have answers to problems of AIDS, water management, Kashmir and Woody Allen. Instead it threw new problems in the form of melting ice, food crunch, chinese goods and Rakhee Sawant.

For what it's worth, I'd say the noughties were time well spent. Personally, these were good years. I grew up and feared not to dream as big as my country did. I earned my chances, and have managed to not make a total mess of them. As India looks out to the world, so do I - and both look forward to marking our place on the map. Watch this space.

Decade of the Gilded Bat

Cricket,

What can you say for the bowlers in these last ten years? That they ran in but were not good enough; or that the powers-that-be did not help? These ten years were so pWned by batsmen, that we are left exhausted by looking up to find the ball hurtling towards the boundary: smashed away by Sehwagaylegilchrist, stroked with precision by Sachinyousufkallis or fluked by the mediocre on an endless streaming-consciousness scale. This was just one of the many ways that cricket changed in this decade. Cricket got bigger, stronger, faster and more importantly - shorter; bats are gilded, even studded with rubies and get driven around games in swanky cars - which isn't such a bad thing.

It involved a lot of travel through dusty Indian towns, even for people from other parts of the world. From sombre Somerset, party people from Port-of-spain and the usual Punters from Tasmania - they all came to hang out at this game-changing new club called T20 and look cool. Cricket became more fun for more people, and they are packing in or beaming on in front of screens everywhere. The game has done well, regardless of the late T20 blitz. There was some sumptuous test cricket and cracking one-day cricket that was played in this decade. These will be remembered as times of Laxman's 281 and England's Ashes and of 434 being chased down at the Wanderers.

These were ten years that the sport appeared to be on power-boosters, and propped up by pain-killers. Batsmen were served on golden trays and were waited upon by liveried ball fetchers, and cheques dated for perpetuity were being signed by suits in Dubai and Mumbai. Everyone got rich, because you and I and our dhobis were watching this charade of sponsored maximum hits and edges flying over third man. Ravi Shastri became the grating Voice of Cricket, and advertising was all over any available audio-visual and psychological nook and cranny. Everything from Lalit Modi, the cheerleaders, Adam Stanford, the mid-wicket hoick and Arun Lal was designed to assault the senses. Cricket has been morally regressing since 1783, but this decade was something else.

Not all is hoick and scoop though. Test cricket appears to be healthy at first glance, if a little sallow in places. Australia continued their unpopular reign of the world game, but their cricket was admirable and is emulated in academies from Bangalore to Barbados. It was when sides like India, England and South Africa took on Aussie might, that stadiums were lit up. An innings or a spell took on a golden hue just by the merit of it having whooped Aussie ass. Pakistan did their bit when they could, Sri Lanka remained as mid-successful and unorthodox as ever and South Africa had their moments. Test cricket does resemble a doddering dodo on certain days though - in the sub-continent, the Caribbean and other tedious days involving New Zealand.

May I stick my bat out and say that this decade has seen the last of the Test greats? Or would it be too premature and inappropriate like this scathing Tendulkar piece I'd done in 2007, and which I take back with utter joy and a shoe up my keyboard. The game has to find ways that another Warne, Lara, Gilchrist, McGrath, Akram, Ambrose or Dravid will actually get to play even half as many tests as these Big Boys. Have you heard the one about India playing 1.27 tests in 2010? Yeah, it is not funny.

In the meanwhile, people continue to lap up the shorter game and more seems to be played every day. Only your Uncle and mine don't have an XI. But we would want Sachin, Gilchrist, Ponting, Dhoni, Flintoff, Sanga, Yuvraj, Warne, McGrath, Steyn, and Zaheer playing for ours. Dilshan can carry our drinks. But seriously, can there be any more one-day and T20 cricket? I suggest teams should be fined if they turn up at all match venues. Aren't you tired? We are.

Yet, Mr. Modi is running his own circus successfully, and the ICC should create windows in the schedule for him, or he will break the door down. I think the IPL is a master-stroke, and the Champions League T20 is a nice touch. It has created an ecosystem of successful people, and it is important that this success is cleverly used for results through the next decade in the form of sustaining a larger audience world-wide, and boards investing in their domestic structure and grassroots facilities.

The poor umpires are doing well not to appear as humanoids in white coats. They still manage to smile and shrug off UDRS and the nightmares of reviewable indecision-making, HotSpot, Snickometer, Hawkeye, large screen replays and evil TV presenters. Too bad they still have to count deliveries, call no-balls and become temporary stands for caps and snazzy sunglasses.

OK, 3-point plan for people running the game for the next decade:

1. Treat your spectator right

Give them a quality product and treat them well - at the stands and on his screen. Quality of Production and Quality of Service have been slogged over cow corner. Don't stuff a deluge of meaningless games, and fours and sixes down our throats. Do away with stoppages for mild rain and bad light, drinks break, wet gloves, tea, power failures, slow over-rates and changing the ball. Give the bowler something to work with, and Arun Lal something else to do with his time.

2. Biennial Two- and in time, maybe even Three-tiered World Championship Test League

Ok, this is important. Test cricket is unquestionnably the highest form, and its primacy has to be retained and even grown in imminence. It cannot continue to remain a cosy affair of sherry and cigars, but has to learn to embrace the bush and the bugle. A structured and intense test championship that screens the best from the only good, and gives promotion and relegation opportunities to all is what will give test cricket a sustainable throne. Test cricket is how cricket was meant to be played.

3. Take the game global

Yes, that is right or we will die of India-Australia slogfests, infighting between boards, associations and leagues, patronage, money-driven tyranny, South Africa hosting all tournaments and slow left-arm bowlers. Bring on Ireland, Scotland, China, Uganda, Afghanistan (yes, that is right - they have official ODI status), USA, Kenya, Netherlands and Tanzania. Take T20 to all cities and towns and television screens from Vladivostok to Beunos Aires. Dine with Olympic officials, and don't invite Mr. Modi. Only pick his brains later for ideas on putting up a show.

Spin

Everything Else..

everything's so dizzyingly quick these days; things happen at click speed. decisions made, photographs uploaded, appointments rescheduled, dresses bought, and tickets booked - hotels and everything. making me wait for over 10 minutes for anything, is wasting my time.

compare that to days not very long ago (what, 15 years? ok, 20?), when what you had were dusty paper trails in shops and offices that had endured the 80s. and for most of the time, you were waiting for the next. tick tock. and some more waiting, amid trips to studiowallah, trips to printer & stationery dude, waiting for the postman to arrive and other such mind-numbing pauses in human progress. long distance telephony was a joke, and local connectivity was no laughing matter. life was slower than a dim snail and you know that, when Mahabharat on TV was the biggest thing that happened after Ramayan on TV.

and yet today - only a blip of time later, the way these things go - a hundred things rush at you before you've even contemplated the morning cuppa: urgent texts, carpet-bombing breaking news, and mails from the world that wasn't sleeping. getting things done too, was never this easy -stock portfolio on the phone, and ordering pizza off the TV. one day today is packed with enough goings-on that would have taken up an entire week in the 80s. no, really.

past-event approximations are out of the district, never mind the ball-park. you know why?

there's spin on time these days. space has been rendered irrelevant. a million revolutions break out in each moment, and what you have is spin. the wheels haven't come off yet, but it sure does get wobbly.

whizz. there, that's 2009.

So much to learn..

We learn all the time, and yet there comes a point when we aren't doing the right kind of learning. Some would argue that there never is a wrong learning.. what does that even mean? Anyhow, that is not my point. I mean, you should learn more about stuff that interests you apart from the stuff you learn at work and relationships. There's simply so much more else!

I would love to learn how to play the guitar, play tennis, live as one with the mountains, scuba dive, speak French and write well - amongst many other things. It's one life, and I want to do it all. As for the after-life, well that's another life, right? So we'll make plans then.

In the meanwhile, who broke the strings on my guitar? and where's my tennis court? There's a scarcity of court-time in not-so-dear-but-plenty-old Pune. Scores of guitarists willing to teach though. As for French, well there's lots of more time coming up. But, I have to continue learning new things throughout my life. That is the one way you continue to challenge yourself, get your mind working in new ways and make new roads for ideas. That is one of the best ways to grow, as a thinking person. New people, new activities, and constant change. Is equilibrium necessary? Only at intervals. The intensity of experience carries far more lessons than the leisure of reading or watching.

I drove today. After a while. After years actually. It was learning, alright. I never did enjoy it when I used to drive then. I was too much of a biker. And I always sat in the driver's seat with a reluctance that came from having enjoyed the wind on my face far too much. But today, I sat with a purpose. That of learning how to enjoy my driving. Because, my biking days are over - except when on vacation somewhere. Ah, how I yearn for those days! But today, I did rather end my drive on a happy note. And it caused my mind to not think in usual, rather programmed ways. I did something anew, and I came out with a refreshed mind. A few synapses clicked after long. No clutter, no noise - simply focusing on the task at hand and figuring out ways to master it. And enjoying it, as it all unfolds.

I wanna do more of this - the learning new things bit. Sounds like fun! Clay, and strings - here I come..

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness ..." wrote Charles Dickens, whose life was a rich mixture of all of the above. Here are 8 odd facts about the novelist:

WHAT THE DICKENS?

Charles Dickens was the first literary superstar - his popular works reached a wider audience than any writer before him. With classics like Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, and David Copperfield, Dickens dominated the literary life of 19th-century England and the United States. But like many remarkable people, Dickens was a complex, multi-layered individual, full of peculiar quirks and odd habits.

• OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE: Dickens was preoccupied with looking in the mirror and combing his hair - he did it hundreds of times a day. He rearranged furniture in his home - if it wasn't in the exact "correct" position, he couldn't concentrate. Obsessed with magnetic fields, Dickens made sure that every bed he slept in was aligned north-south. He had to touch certain objects three times for luck. He was obsessed with the need for tidiness, often cleaning other homes as well as his own.

• NICKNAME-IAC Just as some of his most endearing characters had odd nicknames (like Pip in Great Expectations), Dickens gave every one of his ten children nicknames like "Skittles" and "Plorn."

• EPILEPTIC: Dickens suffered from epilepsy and made some of his characters - like Oliver Twist's brother - epileptics. Modern doctors are amazed at the medical accuracy of his descriptions of this malady.

• PRACTICAL JOKER: Dicken's study had a secret door designed to look like a bookcase. The shelves were full of fake books with witty titles, such as Noah's Arkitecture and a nine-volume set titled Cat's Lives. One of his favorites was a multi-volume series called The Wisdom of Our Ancestors, dealing with subjects like ignorance, superstition, disease, and instruments of torture, and a companion book titled The Virtues of Our Ancestors, which was so narrow that the title had to be printed vertically.

• EGOMANIAC: Dickens often referred to himself as "the Sparkler of Albion," favorably comparing himself to Shakespeare's nickname, "the Bard of Avon." (Albion is an archaic name for England.)

• FAIR-WEATHER FRIEND: Hans Christian Andersen was Dicken's close friend and mutual influence. Andersen even dedicated his book Poet's Day Dream to Dickens in 1853. But this didn't stop Dickens from letting Andersen know when he'd overstayed his welcome at Dickens's home. He printed a sign and left it on Andersen's mirror in the guest room. It read: "Hans Andersen slept in this room for five weeks, which seemed to the family like AGES."

• MESMERIST: Dickens was a devotee of mesmerism, a system of healing through hypnotism. He practiced it on his hypochondriac wife and his children, and claimed to have healed several friends and associates.

• CLIFF-HANGER: When The Old Curiosity Shop was published in serial form in 1841, readers all over Britain and the United States followed the progress of the heroine, Little Nell, with the same fervor that audiences today follow Harry Potter. When the ship carrying the last installment approached the dock in New York, 6,000 impatient fans onshore called out to the sailors, "Does Little Nell die?" (They yelled back that ... uh-oh, we're out of room.)

Times a'changin'

Global WarNing

I was getting troubled by the fact that I hadn't posted anything original for a while. This is more of a soothing balm, than a panicky reaction. Or so I hope.

It is funny how we hope. Such an empty, flat word and yet so promising. Optimist Orgasm. We hope for so much, and often do so little about it. But then again, often so little is in our hands. This is turning into a bit of ramble. I think, I'll get straight to the point.

We, as humans today have much to hope for. The global mess we seem to have landed ourselves into, can only be 'hoped' to be cleared. I use the passive sense intentionally, with the safe knowledge that we humans won't actively do much for it. Global hem and haw.

In conversation with my father the other day, he (the eternal pessimist) suggested that the best years for the human race are essentially, past us. And for once, I found myself agreeing with his bleak outlook on Mankind 1.0. Peering into the futur-o-scope and into the 22nd century, it is difficult to see us thrive as we have for the last 4-5 centuries.

The good times can be said to have started around the 15th century AD, with the European Renaissance - times of great art and science. Literature and philosophy. Religion and architecture. Times of Michelangelo and Machiavelli. Of Galileo and Filippo Brunelleschi. Times that re-infused in our minds the great ideas of Plato, Cicero, Aristotle and Averroes - ideas about civilized society and the best that the human race could be.*Note(see below).

It doesn't take a history-buff to tell you that this was followed by the Industrial Revolution in the 17th AD.. blah.. technological advances.. blah.. mastery of the sea and Imperialsim.. blah.. World War I.. bang.. World War II.



The peak, according to him was 1950-2000 with constitutions, sovereignty, judicial systems and the equal'est' form of society, across the world. This is setting aside the gigantic leaps made in technology, communication, economic sciences, biogenetics and a superior knowledge about ourselves (perhaps one of current science's ultimate challenges, space aside). Opinions may differ about the timing of mankind's golden era but with today's global challenges of climate change, resource crunch- fuel, electricity and sheer space, facing us directly in the eye, only a fool would bet on the human race running into better times from here-on. At the risk of sounding like the friendly neighbourhood 'the-end-is-nigh' wacko - the end of the human race as we know it, is near. The ungrateful rape and plunder of the Blue Planet might cost us dear.

The crux of the problem lies with our inaction. Or in some cases, even non-acknowledgement. It is astonishing that we can still passionately debate, argue and fight over the causes and effects of the obvious degradation of our planet. Global warming is simply one of the more tangible and dramatic effects of our arrogant abuse. The whole truth is way scarier. Under-water tables, mangroves, drilled mountains, 'managed' rivers, coal and metal mining, effluents and waste. And let me not get started about the radioactive crap.

The simple and clear need of the day is for us to act as one and take on the BIG challenge of our age. We have it made as far as other aspects of our living are concerned, and plenty more headway is being made there. But fat lot of good that does, if there's no place to live on. Our planet is dying, and we know it. Man started it, and Nature will end it. Nature will survive, she's seen worse. It is the existence of Man that worries me, unless he magically comes to his senses, and acts swiftly and decisively - as one. Or so I hope.



*Note - Indophiles and Egyptologists might crib about their 'greater' (and earlier) cultures, but the truth remains that modern society is influenced more by European thought during the Renaissance, than by any other. Of course, European minds were open to Arabic ideas and philosophies, which in turn were partly influenced by Vedic thought. It may thus be argued, that European thought in the Renaissance period was a reflection of the finer ideas permeated through the history of mankind, coupled with original first-rate ideas generated by first-class European minds of the time.

Apes that write, start fires and play Pac-Man

Susan Savage-Rumbaugh asks whether uniquely human traits, and other animals' behaviors, are hardwired by species. Then she rolls a video that makes you think: maybe not. The bonobo apes she works with understand spoken English. One follows her instructions to take a cigarette lighter from her pocket and use it to start a fire. Bonobos are shown making tools, drawing symbols to communicate, and playing Pac-Man -- all tasks learned just by watching. Maybe it's not always biology that causes a species to act as it does, she suggests. Maybe it's cultural exposure to how things are done.





Susan Savage-Rumbaugh has made startling breakthroughs in her lifelong work with chimpanzees and bonobos, showing the animals to be adept in picking up language and other "intelligent" behaviours.


Other TEDTalks:

Richard Branson



Jan Chipchase - Principal Researcher, Nokia



Seth Godin (Great idea!)

The Essay

In this TNokia Telenor ad, a little girl reads her essay about the future, to the increasing consternation of adults around her.

World War II Colour Photos

WWII in Color website has the Internet’s largest collection of rare color photographs from World War II. This one above is a signed photo of the Flying Tigers in China.

Flying Tigers was a volunteer group of pilots and ground crew, recruited under a secret presidential order by US President Roosevelt to fight Japanese forces (under disguise that they’re part of the Chinese Air Force) before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

Sleeping Chinese

You may have heard the term "The Sleeping Giant" being applied to China, but as German photographer Bernd Hagemann found out, the term may actually have a more literal meaning: Chinese people can sleep anywhere, anytime!

Indeed Bernd has documented this phenomenon: Here’s a fantastic gallery of sleeping people in China, categorized as "hardsleepers" (those who sleep in pretty hardcore positions), "softsleepers" (who needs a little padding) and "groupsleepers" (those who sleep with friends, literally!)

234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party

Every generation needs a new revolution.

- Thomas Jefferson

Boston - 16 Dec, 1773

Erik Mongrain - Guitar Tapping -'PurcusienFa'

Things I've learnt about the Blues..

1. Most blues begin “woke up this morning.”

2. “I got a good woman” is a bad way to begin the blues, unless you stick something nasty in the next line. I got a good woman - with the meanest dog in town.

3. Blues are simple. After you have the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes. Sort of. Got a good woman with the meanest dog in town. He got teeth like Margaret Thatcher and he weighs about 500 pounds.

4. The blues are not about limitless choice.

5. Blues cars are Chevies and Cadillacs. Other acceptable blues transportation is Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Walkin’ plays a major part in the blues lifestyle. So does fixin’ to die.

6. Teenagers can’t sing the blues. Adults sing the blues. Blues adulthood means old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.

7. You can have the blues in New York City, but not in Brooklyn or Queens. Hard times in Vermont or North Dakota are just depression. Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City are still the best places to have the blues.

8. You can’t have the blues in an office or a shopping mall; the lighting is all wrong.

9. The following colors do not belong in the blues:

a. violet
b. beige
c. mauve

10. Good places for the Blues:
a. the highway
b. the jailhouse
c. the empty bed

11.Bad places for the Blues:
a. Ashrams
b. Gallery openings
c. weekend in the Hamptons

12. Do you have the right to sing the blues?

Yes, if:
a. your first name is a southern state-like Georgia
b. you’re blind
c. you shot a man in Memphis.
d. you can’t be satisfied.

No, if:
a. you were once blind but now can see.
b. you’re deaf
c. you have a trust fund.

13. No one will believe it’s the blues if you wear a suit, unless you happen to be an old black man.

14. Neither Julio Iglesias nor Barbra Streisand can sing the blues.

15. If you ask for water and baby gives you gasoline, it’s the blues. Other blues beverages are:
a. wine
b. whiskey
c. muddy water

16.Blues beverages are NOT:
a. Any mixed drink
b. Any wine kosher for Passover
c. YooHoo

17. If it occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it’s blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is a blues way to die. So is the electric chair, substance abuse, or being denied treatment in an emergency room. It is not a blues death if you die during a liposuction treatment.

18. Some Blues names for Women
a. Sadie
b. Big Mama
c. Bessie

19. Some Blues Names for Men
a. Joe
b. Willie
c. Little Willie
d. Lightning

20a. Persons with names like Sierra or Sequoia will not be permitted to sing the blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

20b. Other Blues Names (Starter Kit)
a. Name of Physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Asthmatic)
b. First name (see above) or name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Kiwi)
c. Last Name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.)
Mix and Match

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