Fashionable finally!

Three times in the last four days, I have received compliments for my attire. Something’s' wrong with the world or is it me?

Last Thursday, colleagues in office found my attire "inspiring". Since they have always thought I am a dork it was a pleasant surprise to them as well as me. Then on Saturday I met old friends from college. Now these gals, they KNOW I am a dork. There was a time back in college they would spend hours lecturing me on the current sense of style. When they saw no improvement, they gave up on the lost cause. None of them ever knew as much about the various stages of completion of our class projects and the dates when we had to submit them so it was okay if the dork chose to hang around with them. Useful.

The same girls, now successful Executives, wives and mothers, (Super-Women really) "ooh- ed and aah-ed" at my choice of clothes and discussed it in great detail. I never knew women could discuss the intricacies of a mix and match selection for over an hour. But then, what do I know? I was pleased that I finally found something to wear that met with their approval 10 years on.

The final feather of course was yesterday at the Infiniti Mall at Versova. I was there to see "The Departed.” (A fabulous movie directed by Martin Scorsese with great acting by Jack Nicholson and Leornado.) At the pop-corn queue, a complete stranger walked up to me and she said, "Lovely outfit" with a big smile on her face. For a second there, I was unable to respond. Then I said a mild Thank you and told her I got the kurta from Ahmedabad. Here I was in the midst of all these beautiful or at least confident and well dressed people and this smart looking lady gives me a compliment on my clothes. Three times in 4 days, not bad at all for a Dork is it?

A Drive around Town

Friday night on the streets of Bombay. I love to go on a drive to start off perfect week ends. The best way to start off would be a drive to naturals for an ice cream followed by a stroll at Juhu Beach, newly shorn of all the shops that had hidden the water view from the road. It's a better place now without all the stalls. After mid night, you can easily park on the road and sit and play in the sands or stroll towards the sea. Enjoy the music of the waves and walk along the beach. The lovely thing about this city is that you feel safe even at midnight.

Sunday morning is another lovely time to hit the road. The near empty roads across town tempt you to stretch the speed limit and enjoy a drive. I love the empty highway and some great CD's are all I need for company. I wish some times that the roads were clear through the week and I could drive in to work on empty roads but then I suppose Bombay would never be the same if we did not get stuck in traffic snarls while heading home from work.

Beautiful drives are probably meant only for late nights and early mornings when life looks so much better. Like the sharp lights on the road at night that allow you to weave a magic spell helped by the songs on radio or the beautiful sunrise that hides the rubbish and makes our very own Juhu look like some picture post card from Goa.

The Beatles

I enjoyed a lovely Beatles feature presentation on TV with screaming fans adoring every movement of the famous band while there was an INXS concert in town. I heard later that there was hardly any crowd at the live concert here in Mumbai despite wide spread coverage and a pretty regular TV appearance by the band in the last couple of months.

I was wondering about the mad rush and crazy fan following that the Beatles enjoyed in the '60s and the luke warm reception the Bombay audience gave a pretty popular band today. Are there too many bands now or too few fans? How is it that there were so many great rock groups then and so few singers one can actually listen to now...

The Loot!

Raksha bandhan is not about the loot. It's about all sorts of nice feelings. But I got great Brothers. So....

I got an I Pod. I have just started the onerous task of getting all my Cd's copied into the system so that I can then copy it to my I Pod. Yieeeeeyyy :-)).

I would have never got one my self. It's too hi-fi for my simple soul. But I know now that I always wanted it. It's so nice to be able to carry around your own music everywhere.

A beautiful day

I have three elder brothers and I just love this day.

Raksha Bandhan is about brothers and sisters and it just makes me so happy to celebrate it. As a Tamilian, it really isn’t "my festival" but since I was a kid, I always knew that I would tie a “rakhi” to my brothers irrespective of that.
Like any typical Indian festival today is a colourful day with everybody dressed up in finery and traditional goodies prepared early morning.

The rakhi has 2 meanings attached to it. One is the obvious request for protection by the sister to her brothers in time of emergency and the other is the sister's prayers for her brother’s safety and long life. I suppose it is what all festivals are about. Thanksgiving for what we have and hope for a good future ahead.

Blogs interrupted?

It looks like while trying to block terrorists from blogs the Indian Government has blocked the entire community. This is sad. I hope I can continue to say that I reside in a democracy.

I had made it a daily habit to read some of my favourite bloggers who write well instead of taking a break for tea in the afternoon. I am one of those lazy creatures who prefers to enjoy others reading more than creating passable prose myself. Today I found that I could not get my daily dosage of blog reading at office.

For a moment, I wondered if it was my Network Admin at work but then I remembered this morning's paper head line and realised it must be the Indian government at work. This is a reaction of those who cannot understand what the Net is about. The guy who was given the job to block certain blogs probably decided blocking *.blogspot.com is easy. Who reads blogs anyway? A miniscule minority who is not expected to raise its voice against such stupidity.

Some blogs might have been used by terrorists and the government should take steps against them but throwing the baby out with the bath water???

I wonder if I will go back to my afternoon cuppa or maybe I could start writing regularly instead. Its more difficult and certainly less entertaining. The cup of tea looks more interesting by the minute. The only fall out of the Bombay bomb blast 2006 in my life would probably be the return of my afternoon tea.

I hope they bring it back.

India Untouched

I started another blog and left this one out...

Here goes...
I was on vacation and read a book called India Untouched. The sorry details of rural poverty in India. The apathy of the government and the complete despair that the people face is chilling.

We have the best combination of PM and President today. Can they find a solution? How do we address the social, economic as well as the cultural ramifications that have led to this situation?

India shines in her knowledge economy, can we use our abilities to also alleviate the problems of rural India? Is there an answer here?

Corporate Blogs

I read a Corporate Blog regularly. It’s about a new economy company. They are consultants who help in off shoring for US clients in India.
In this blog, they have analytic experts explaining mathematical models on customer abandonment and much more. Service level models are discussed and staffing decisions are taken based on these models. Industrial Engineering philosophies are now routinely used by consultants while discussing offshore call centre benefits. Given that personnel are the major operational cost in most offshore processing units, even a small reduction could mean significant gains.

The blog discusses various research projects and has subtle advertising hints to contact the consultants. I wonder how many hits actually convert to productive man hours for them. Although I am a regular reader there, corporate blogs are good to discuss and learn but to use them as advertising tools is an innovative idea.

A matter of choice

This is the story of the Hare who lost his spectacles is a cute song I love. Like the Hare, I lost mine too.

"Ostensibly motionless, the hare was trembling with excitement, for without his spectacles he was completely helpless. Where were his spectacles? Could someone have stolen them? Had he mislaid them? What was he to do?"

I was not sure why anyone would flick my dear pair of spectacles? It was only dear to me and to no one else. But then, such is life.

Thanks to the meteoric rise in the use of technology in ophthalmology, I also own a pair of lenses. Rarely used for special occassions. This also means that I was not as helpless as the hare. I did not have to rush to an optician and get another pair. I started using my lenses at work, for a drive and for a movie. After all, I did own the pair, might as well use it.

A week went by and I was headed on a long drive out to the mountains. It was so irritating that I had to spend half an hour to get lens ready just for my very own drive. That day I decided to get another pair and damn the lenses I own.

So, here I was, all set on buying a new pair of spectacles. I went to the shop expecting to spend a few minutes trying out a frame and spent an hour checking out "fashionable" stuff. There were 500 varieties and innumerable brands and so many designs vying for my attention.

It's funny how the shop keeper and his assistant become your close friends ( I wonder if that is the correct word here) and decide that his opinion on what suits me should matter. They tell you what they like and what looks good on my face. I was to make a choice and I "chose" what they liked on my face. Why? I wonder!

A matter of choice indeed! I was wondering if I would have been happier if I had no choice except for the gandhian frame or some such basic number but maybe not. Do we really need all these varieties to spice up our lives? Were we as a race more clear and focused when we had less choice? Has China got it right when they choose economies of scale and make a billion similar pieces of an item than Indian Entrepreneurs who customise just about everything?

What is the real choice? Waiting for a perfecet holiday when you can see the perfect sunrise over a golden beach or enjoy the daily sunrise outside my window in between two buildings?

Music as celebration...

Music as celebration is the key here: brightly coloured by elements of improvisation, this material echoes the many diverse and sometimes conflicting spiritual yearnings, which might trouble the itinerant middle-aged musician on his continuing journey across the world stages.

Apparently, it was also quite fun to play.

- Ali Aziz, The Mesopotamia Sun – Times, 1995

Yesterday evening I was home early and felt like some lovely Tull to start the weekend.
I read this on a CD cover. Every piece of music over the years by Jethro Tull or Andersen has been one great celebration of music.

Ian Anderson plays the flute beautifully and is the Commanding General on the stage for Jethro Tull music. I read once that he does not like blog reviews and I will certainly not do that here but I liked this bit of Journalism about him and wanted to “own” it.

I am New to this!

Someone asked me this morning:
how do you define success? Is success tons of money in the bank and position in society - somebody else's perception where you get talked about in big society-do's or maybe written about in magazines as part of an elite statistic? In the process, how much do you compromise on time for yourself, or for the people you love, or live for?

I was thinking and so this blog came up.

Success is to achieve what you want to achieve. It could just be 2 square meals and lots of time to do nothing or it could be 80 hour weeks and a million dollars growing in your name. It could be betterment of the society you live in or a combination of it all. I believe I am rich and fairly successful since I am happy with what I have. You may think otherwise. Relativity and Change are two things you need to keep in mind when you define success. My mother is possibly the most successful in my eyes because she raised us well and devoted herself so much to the concept of family. She made the future a bright place for so many people by making sure her children were good human beings. In her view, she failed because she did not make any use of her musical talent. So, both of us view her success or the lack of it differently.

I know by every yardstick of society I am not a successful human being but maybe this is all I want out of life. I might change the view 20 years later, who knows and frankly does it really matter at all?

If I can sleep at night knowing that I did not harm anybody today and I spent the day constructively, I think I have then earned the right to live. (Even if it was just a constructive Holiday spent watching movies)

To sum up, I don't measure success on a pre defined scale. It's a yardstick that is fluid depending on the time, place, people and god knows what else…

That was tough thinking in between a working Monday. I really should be getting back to work or feel guilty about wasting time.