Tuesday, July 03, 2007

dont just accept it

For some reason from some where hidden in my memory a story line from something I had seen popped up. someone (I would imagine the devil) comes to a person and offers him money. In return all he has to do is press a button. One pressing this button someone somewhere around the world, someone you did not know will die. That’s it. For the hell of me I could not figure out which movie or serial it was. What would you do? Would you just do it? Interesting question… and after you do it.. the devil takes away the button… where to?... well to someone else you don’t know… hehehehehhe.
Kya pakau idea hai. Disturbing hai.

I never did realize that by watching Khini kum, I would get depressed today!. Let me explain. Before the movie I walked into Crosswords at the multiplex. I picked up an interesting book – confessions of an economic hit man by John Perkins. An outstanding must read about the global level of corruption, power and immorality. Post that the same guys came out with another book that I saw before watching the Fantastic Four. A Game as old as empire. Oh man… this is another depressing book. “here other economic hit men, journalists, and investigators join Perkins to reveal many more disturbing stories of greed and international corruption.” This book is an amazing brain fuck. To continue “in gripping detail, they describe the schemes and subterfuges that multinational corporations, governments, powerful individuals, financial institutions, and quasi-governmental agencies enrich themselves behind the façade of ‘foreign aid’ and ‘ international development’.

If Jispa comes across these books early enough in her life she is going to be a radical.

I reminded of a poem I had heard years ago. It was in television series about the Vietnam War and some soldiers’ fire at a woman who opened fire at them. From her diary the soldiers read out a poem. It goes something like this…
If you want to be a flower, be the prettiest
If you want to be (something I don’t remember) be the (some superlative)
Etc etc etc…. (I don’t remember)
(It ends this way though)
But if you want to be a human being be a revolutionary….

Of course I am not expecting her to be a naxal. That’s definitely not the way. There are also books about Gandhiji that if she reads will tell her a lot. Those are outstanding insights into his mind and his fight for the truth.

This tank man at the Tiananman Square China who with his presence and a bunch of groceries, stopped a battalion of tanks by just standing there is an inspiration.




Video of the same.

Monday, July 02, 2007

weekend musings



What an action packed weekend. It started with an action packed movie Die Hard 4.0 on Friday evening. Mad movie. Bruce Willis does all the unbelievable moves with the same dead pan expression that made him, well, Bruce Willis. Your average city cop who can jump on F16’s, shoot helicopters with cars, fly helicopters, jam cars down lift chutes and the rest. Wowie. Complete humbug stuff…. Did I like the movie you ask? I absolutely loved it. I am going to see it again. Complete action movie. Can’t believe a second of it.
Next day was tons of rain day. Did not step outside the house – the movie rubbed off on me the wrong way I guess. But I did something that I found absolutely fun. I took a lot of Jispa’s toys and dumped them on her writing board. I then took top views of them and voila – I spy with my eye. We printed and stuck it on her scrap book for the school. Here is the one. See if you can spy –

I spy with my eye

1. a blue bird
2. a kiwi
3. the missing shoe
4. a fairy (from peter pan)
5. a blue crayon
6. a trophy
7. a hair dryer
8. a flagpole
9. ganesh
10. a book
11. a hat
12. bob the builder
13. steering wheel(s)
14. a mobile phone
15. a pair of red sandals – ok they look a little pink
16. a candle
17. a tap - not fair actually
18. Exxon
19. the magic lamp
20. pedal
21. a bow
22. chopsticks
23. a lego seat - again not fair if you have not played with Jispa
24. two running men - very very unfair.

Vinu’s reaction -

Can we play the Beginners version of the game. I'm not a grand master yet.
So how about spying
Princess Jasmine
Ambulance
Green balloon
Purple/Violet balloon
Mickey Mouse

Damn it. For a start with a bang, I can't spot the blue bird. Its easier for me to list what I can spot.

Heheheh – he was always the blind one. How many can you spot?

Then on Sunday we saw ‘khain kulli ki main kulli’. Cute kiddie movie about a magic bat helping India win. FTR – Jispa cried in this one as well. This is when the bat broke. I console her ‘ don’t worry, all is not lost. Keep seeing’. She asks “will they still win”.”I don’t know – keep watching. Its ok to lose as well you know”. She sobs a little and says,”in school when I run, it is not like ‘sometimes you win, sometimes you lose’. In school in running I always win”. She is quite proud about her running skills in school. She manages to win all the time. Very cool. I love it. I wish for her to take up any sport. Any one sport and play well and under professional coaching. Always good to understand one sport to the best that you can. Post which we went for a kiddie birthday party. Jispa does not like to miss any parties. She loves the games, the cake and everything in middle.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

free hugs

thats the way it should be

Trimurti

Knowing a word is interesting especially when it describes a feeling. After writing about catharsis yesterday, I experienced it. Hehehhe now I know what I expeirencied. After two and a half years of beautifying my desk I got rid of everything. All the photos, greeting cards, everything on the desk. Completely. It is bare bones clean. See the before and after pics… from super creative to super clean.
mmmm…does it reflect a new way of thinking. My guys were wondering what came over me. They were almost scared that something’s gone completely wrong. I have been thinking about getting rid of it all for sometime now. Too many people were commenting on it and calling it beautiful. I don’t like when too many people like it! Now slowly let me think of something new to put on it.

It’s also in many ways symbolic. One of the best management theories I read was concerning, Brahma (creator), Vishnu (preserver) and Maheswara (destroyer). This was from Circle of Innovation by Tom Peters. I had read it years ago while browsing at Satyam centre at Churchgate. Those were the days that I could not afford to buy books. I hope Jispa never has that problem. So I created it, I preserved it and now I destroyed it. Every company needs a mix of this if it has to survive and grow. I so believe in it. After two and a half years I am trying to actively destroy a lot of processes, thinking and way of doing. Only from the ashes of the present will we be able to do anything more path breaking.

Despite the difficulties, all the frustrations, there is a joy in having done something as well as you could and better than others thought that you could. – JRD Tata. Very true.

I picked that up from the Kishore Biyani’s book, it happened in India. When the book first released, in all my arrogance I did not pick it up. a big launch, widely distributed, how could it have given me all the intellectual fart that I so crave for. I will learn constantly that I must not judge a book too soon ands not to get intellectually arrogant. It’s turned out pretty decent with enough leanings and anecdotal value. Not bad at all. Once I complete it let me see make an ‘intellectual’ comment.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

rediscovery of emotions

Years ago, eons ago… when I was in school I read the knowledge bank series. There I remember reading about dreams and rapid eye movement. It was very interesting. Today morning I was just looking at Jispa sleeping. She was sleeping peacefully. But her eyeballs were moving inside her closed eyelids. Left right, up down. She was dreaming. I don’t know why, but it was a pretty sight. Just knowing that your child is dreaming is such a lovely thing. Hope fully they weren’t nightmares.

Yesterday I was on a word understanding spree. I was understanding the real meaning of the word Catharsis - A release of emotional tension, as after an overwhelming experience, that restores or refreshes the spirit. I was speaking about this to Satarupa (a friend from Kolkata), she gave me one more word, Epiphany - As a feeling, an epiphany is a sudden realisation or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something. The term is used in either a philosophical or literal sense to signify that the claimant has "found the last piece of the puzzle and now sees the whole picture," or has new information or experience, often insignificant by itself, that illuminates a deeper or numinous foundational frame of reference.
Lovely words, if one understands the depth of their meanings. Good fun.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Dimag laga

Movies allways have an impact on people. I am no exception. Yesterday we went to watch the fantastic four. We were most enamored by the ‘fantastic’ bunch. I remember seeing Jackie Chan movies when I was much younger and then doing those imaginary kicks and punches and jumping away from danger. The mad escapist world of movies!!! This time we were returning home and we were in the lift that had gone bonkers, thanks to the rain I think. While going up it just stops on the 9th floor and remains open for a random period of time. Wife and Vinu who were along were busy pressing all the various buttons in the hope of getting the lift door to close. I calmly said “move aside”. I put my arms on either side of the door and said “I will make it close by the power of a magnetic force, like the fantastic four”. I stood there humming and touching the sides of the lift in a picture of intense concentration. Voila – it closed… I could not help laughing looking at Jasmine and Vinu’s faces.

We went to the Magnet store on Saturday. I picked up a bottle of ready to drink Tabasco Bloody Mary mix. Just add vodka and there you have a ready bloody Mary. Most of the time when we go drinking I am forced to drink Virgin Mary, so by default it has become a favorite drink. I normally check out the ingredients for non vegetarian contents. I could prima facie spot none. It also had a green dot mark. On reaching home Vinu saw the ingredients and spotted Anchovies. Anchhovies - Small, silvery fish that are usually cured with salt. So that’s pretty non-veg by my standards. It was imported by some United Distributors inc co at Dr. E Moses Road. The dickheads put the vegetarian mark on it. Good luck I did not open or drink it. Now whom to catch for this transgression. Absolutely no concern, that too in a large vegetarian country like India. Let me try calling them up and seeing. Dekhe.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Dharam and Karam

Dharam
For quite some time now, I have avoided watching too deep movies. They might be nice and real, but they somehow disturb me. Especially if they are really well made. Dharam is one of those. A lovely movie with some fantastic acting by Pankaj Kapur. He is really outstanding in the movie. It also has some powerful moments. In fact it’s so good I wished I had not seen it. The impact remains for a few hours afterwards. I prefer the brain dead escapist cinemas that way. I think fantastic four would have been a perfect substitute. Funny. I don’t regret watching Dharam, in fact I am glad I did but I still would have loved to watch Fantastic Four instead. Opposites reconciling? … hehehe.

Karma
I have realized an important skill set that I have acquired over a period of time. The ability to have fun, be friends, guide my bachas at office and then if they go wrong be the strict masterji. I can’t tolerate ineffectiveness and other wrong doings. The companyis not going to pay for your mistakes dude. While accepting salaries one does not tolerate mistakes then why should one expect the company to tolerate bullshit. Galti karo, galtiyaan karo, Roz karo, Sau galtiyan karo, par ek galti dubara mut karo.I also realized that the team is a little scared when they do go wrong. Not that I scold much. A few lines strongly spoken would do the needful. Scolding as well as praise must be short and to the point. Praise might be a bit longer if needed but never scolding. I have managed to at leatst balance friendship and toughness for now. This was something I dunno why I could earlier could never do.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Things we keep discovering

After knowing Jasmine for 16 plus years there are still things about each other that we keep discovering. The other day I saw my daughter eating dal roti sabzi on her own. She took a piece of roti dunked it into the dal and then took some sabzi with it and ate it. I found this different. I normally pick up the sabzi with the roti and then dunk it into the dal before eating it. I was about to correct her when I looked at Jasmine eating. She too was a roti – dal – sabzi person. A-ha, so it was Jasmine teaching her. I spoke to Jasmine and figured that I am a roti-sabzi-dal person. Funny I did not notice this all these years of eating together. I guess when Jasmine and me ate together we were always busy, lost into each other eyes! hahahahahhahahah.. funny, nah?

One of my old trainees called me today. She said that she was about to get remarried. I was happy on two counts. (a) She was getting settled (b) She told me about it. It hardly anything but it matters to be in the loop

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

theory of scarcity and abundance

Hmmmmmm….. Breathe easy. I am just back after a week long vacation with family Singapore. It was quite a lovely vacation doing all the tourist things. I wanted to take my family ever since I first saw the place during one a business trip. It’s a kiddy paradise with the opportunity to get up close and personal with a multitude of animals.

Also for an arm chair anthropologist any new city especially a new country is a wet dream come true. It’s amazing to see the difference in the cultures. In just one generation they have transformed their culture and discipline.

As always it was depressing to see the Indian tourist making a bloody ass of him self in a tourist spot. We tend to behave as if there is no tomorrow. I have a theory here. I guess what has happened is that we have become a country of scarcity. The developed countries have a culture of abundance. They can handle abundance and we can only handle scarcity. We are trained and ingrained to survive scarcity. We always behave as if there is no tomorrow and that the first one wins. At Sentosa after one of the animal shows the handler invited the crowd to then get themselves a picture clicked with a python. The Indians jammed the guy by surrounding him, breaking lines, pushing and shoving to get first. The guy kept saying to have patience and that every one will definitely get a picture. One lady decided to get the snake on her head on her own while the handler was about to call some one else. Then she gets her entire family involved one by one. Tony idhar aa, photo le, bhabhi aap bhi aaiye, and so on. We just cant handle abundance. We can handle the trainer picking one person on a lucky draw but we cannot handle the fact that everyone will get a chance if they just wait. For anyone trying to test the theory just try giving free bananas to street urchins, or slum colonies or even free anything to office goers at Nariman point. Ensure you have an abundance of bananas. The more the bananas, the greater the chaos. We see abundance and just lose it all. It just seems surreal to us. Let’s run and garner the most for us. Like wise I think the developed guys can’t handle scarcity. Looting, anarchy and riots in times of scarcity are common. Just remember the riots at US when they had massive flooding and at the same time the order and restraint shown by Indians during the Mumbai flooding.

I see this changing slowly though. My generation was largely fed stories of thrift, conservation and survival. We had one chocolate being divided into three pieces for three siblings. Most of what we wanted was unavailable or unaffordable. Jispa’s generation is of abundance. She has choice in what she wants. She chooses what she wants, has more books than she can read and generally has abundance of what is primarily made available to her. We try not to spoil her but yes she definitely is the child of abundance. Hope she grows up with a level head. She must be able to reconcile abundance and scarcity. Heheheh…. Opposites reconcile.

Monday, June 04, 2007

remove them

Nothing has changed since high school. Everyone has a frustration in office that they wish to remove. I have concluded that the birthdays are the best way for people to remove their frustration just like high school. The guy everyone wants to take out their frustration on will always be the guy facing the most violent celebrations on his birthday. Our office techie guy celebrated his birthday on Friday. Everyone who is anyone would have a bone to pick with the tech guy responsible for running our systems. Over years I have figures that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. An understanding techie is a paradox. Most of these dudes will behave as if resources are super finite and sit judgment on what you can or cannot use or are entitled to. It is he who ordains how much RAM is enough for some one or has his own convoluted formula for processor speed. It is he who rules over the infrastructure monarchy with typically the business head not understanding the function and therefore letting power corrupt. With my few years of tech background (was a part of the first dot com gold rush) I have managed to give a few things back. Sometimes even explained to them the way to do things. That keeps them in check. A fine balance office life is. So coming back to the point. The poor guy was someone who the entire office had a bone to pick with I guess. Actually sometimes it’s not about the man but about the position he is in. He is not that bad. So this poor guy had everyone there on his ‘birthday cake cutting ceremony’. He got plastered with his own cake. Now that’s normal. Lots of them get plastered. But then he has the honor of the only guy to have got birthday bums in office. Oh man that was bad. That was frustration removal of the highest order. When I heard the counting around the corner, I realized it was bum hitting of the poor guy. In spite of my bad knee, I ran across and joined in the revelry. The poor guy got a few more bums than what his age warranted. But then, when the guys are at you, there is no stopping them from going overboard. Mob mentality at his best! I was quite worried if they would push it too far. Thankfully the hero took it in the right spirit and everyone was happy. But it was fun to see how frustrations have their own manifestations.

Thursday, May 31, 2007

book book ki baat hai

I have had an amazing run with books. I went through 6 to 8 books in a row that were “unputdownable”. I have learnt a few things. When it comes to books, don’t listen to too many reviews. What some people praise to heavens may not be for you and what some people deride may be just up your alley. Also books have a timing problem. What I might hate today might be just the book I want to read ten years hence. Some require a level of understanding and openness; some just are something’s that cut across all ages. There is probably no bad book or good book. It’s either the right book or the wrong book. God knows which one you like or find useful. There was one book which I found too superficial to read. I kept ignoring it. I ran out of books one day and picked it up. One of the chapters spoke about employee communication and the need to communicate the P/L in simple. At the same I was doing a little work for the group finance office. Bango…. Sold them the concept and the result was a much appreciated piece of work. So its just a question of the right book at the right time. Here… this was the stuff that got appreciated a lot. As the boss said:- this time mktg, HR and finance is working together. I replied one back:- we were always here, kabhi maang ke dekha hoga. I can get senti at times I guess.

I have another theory why no books can be bad books. Even an absolutely bad, ugly book will at least help you know understand what’s so bad about it!

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

ceaseless whispers

Whrrrrrrrrrrr….sometimes its just is difficult to write something. But the trick to write anything and hopefully the sting catches on with one thing leading to another ad another. Khyati, a very dear student of mine is in office these days. She is doing a project with some other department. We are using the time to catch up during lunch time and coffee breaks. We share a special relationship and she comes every day to say hi and bunk for coffee. And I guess that we are pretty close, laughing, talking in whispers etc. I had a doubt but then it came to the fore when someone commented wryly – you are spending a lot of time with trainees, huh?. You dickhead, she is my student from long… ohhhhhhh… some wise guy then says, sir, I am also your student, introduce karoa na. Oh god. Corporate life never changes. But then I guess its their fault. Khyati will treat me like some kind of papa figure, so she obviously is much more comfortable with me and office will never see it the same way. Hmmmmm…. Kaa Karen?

as someone once told me - platonic relationship.. hahahhah new words... how about good friends?

Thursday, May 24, 2007

mind map

Once on a lark, when we were in a lift, I just asked Jispa “which lift do you like”. Our building has two lifts you see. Why would she prefer one over the other? Nah. Didn’t expect her to. It just was one of the stupid questions that Daddy likes to ask daughter. Absolutely stupid. She replies in an instant “ I like the other lift better”. Huh!!?!! “why?”. She replies “the other one has a round zero, but this one has an oval zero”. What? I don’t believe that. On closer inspection I saw that this one has an oval zero on the ground floor button for sure. See below.


Then I saw the other lift. Sure enough, that one has a round zero. See below.



Jispa – either you are some prodigy or you just plain whacked

Mom and Dad often sent us on stage when we were kids and made to compete on stage, talk on stage and generally help us overcome stage fright at an early age. Thanks to that I was always ok being on stage and I did not care too much about it. We have been trying to get Jispa on public forums as much as possible. She has to be comfortable with mikes, audiences etc. we go along with her for that as well. There are tons of malls with some contests or the other constantly happening. We keep sending Jispa for that. Now she is quite comfortable with it. There was one in which the compere kept urging anyone to come and scream – I love you mom three times. She asked me if she could go and scream. For sure, what do I care? There she went on her own screamed and came back happy. Attaboy girl! Way to go. Here is a pic of her with Jasmine kissing her 20 times with heavy lipstick on. Yuck! She won something for the effort.

Monday, May 21, 2007

eat a lot



My wife is very rich. She decided to buy grapes. Not just any grapes but grapes imported from New Zealand I think. Reason – Jispa likes them and the normal grapes are out of season. Fair enough. She refused to tell me at what price did they come. Yup they were tasty all right. I happened to see the price sticker and I fell over. 179 bucks for a packet. Each grape was a nice big piece. So since I was at home resting and nothing to do, I counted the number of grapes that came in the packet. Bottom line – each grape costs around Rs 1.75. hmmmm.. oops I dropped a pair – that’s three bucks. Should I eat ten pieces or should just eat one mango. Hahahhahah. Man the last I knew what fruits cost was around ten fifteen years ago when I used to go with mom to buy veggies and fruits. Now I have no clue what they cost. So they always come as a surprise. Jispa, you better like the grapes. And the mangoes.

Jispa can sleep anywhere when she is tired. Here is she sleeping at the Café Coffee day chair.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Wheel-chair anthropology

I have an allergy cold, a bad knee, body ache, troubled tummy, a little rash, a bad morale and a little resilience. I am bouncing back … not so fast as ever but bouncing for sure.

Thanks to the bad knee, I was not going to spoil our family outing to InOrbit mall. We went after checking if there were enough wheelchairs available. My wife’s granny in one and me in another. That was really cool. Its nice to see Mumbai reacting to wheel chairs. Some make way, some smile, some ignore and some don’t care. While getting into the lift nobody cares for your wheel chair. Everyone wants to go in first. Dam cheap. They get out without bothering to see how I can get in. since the doors close fast enough they close before I manage to wheel in. I had to request some one getting out, to hold it open for us to get in. Not happening. But I recommend all the arm chair anthropologists to get on to wheel chairs and see how the city truly behaves with the not so privileged. My final take, Mumbai in a mall is polite enough, but enough to give up on their time for you. Time is this fast city is money. I can smile, talk, show sympathy but I can’t wait. I got to go >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> next time, try and give time to others, that’s the only thing we have a need for. As once I learnt a valuable lesson from Rajesh, his daughter had brought two books to my home with the aim of giving one away. He asked his daughter (Twishi) which one she liked more and to give that one away to Jispa. I saw, I learned but did I conquer? I hope to.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

tie me up


I can’t believe that I used to wear ties once upon a time. Today is a big meeting that we are getting done and it’s obviously a formal affair. I got my tie and jacket to office to wear just before the function. On a lark I just wore the tie while still in office. Oh shit man. That thing feels like a rope around my neck. It was off in less than 15 minutes. How the hell did I ever wear ties to office? Unbelievable! How could anyone wear ties to office? How could any one wear ties at all? That too in the Mumbai heat. Then we wear jackets. Oh man. In marketing most of the functions that we organize are in the evening, so I normally get away by wearing a jacket and no tie. But these afternoon functions (HIGH TEA) bloody require a tie. Oh man. Why do we do it at all? Why cant we just wear what is comfortable for us? When I was in sales I used to wear a tie in office as it was expected of you, but I never wanted my sales guys on the street to wear one. What’s the bloody point? The guy roaming around buses and train and oppressive heat has to figure with a tie. Most of the time he was not a tie enthusiast as well, so that made for ugly ties. Most of the heros did not even know how to tie a knot so, they would be roaming around with two three ties, whose knot has not been removed. SO they just wear them over and tighten them. Lengths, knots be dammed. Purple ties on brown pants, green shirts with ties with psychedelic prints and God knows what not. Ah, yes the lengths… some would be longer and would hide the crotch, the others would end above the navel. Some would be broad and some would be “that 80’s” think look. Almost all of them were stripped, and when stripes finally come into fashion they would be prints. They would be worn over every kind of shirt, even the ones with two pockets and a ruff washed look. Oh the death of the tie. So, I just banned them. It’s more convenient, the team loved me for it and the poor fella looked better. Improving motivation was never so easy.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Murals

Jispa did some murals...priceless i say on the walls. She had some finger paints which she decided to experiment with. I sure love her painting the walls of the house. Slowly but surely we would have no bare walls.
Now the problem is I dont think I will ever have the heart to paint these walls over.
Har Ghar chup chap se kehta hai ki andar isme kaun rehta hai
the following one is a butter fly with antennas
Papa, mama joined in to leave their mark as well

The Rainbow lollipop, done with a brush


A tree with a black outline followed by yellow and green outlines.

Monday, May 07, 2007

crutches

Continuing with the cricket series, I learnt something new. One cant be an Australian on Indian grounds. I was fielding in the seven a side tournament and the captain decided to experiment a bit. He kept only one person on the leg side, ME, and everyone else on the off side. Interesting strategy it was, to use the fastest fielder for the covering the most ground. Fair enough. But then the bowler is supposed to bowl on the off stump, full pitched not short balls that can be swung around on the open leg side boundary. I saved one boundary, then some more runs, and then I was running to stop one more when I suddenly felt my ankle turn (uneven ground) and consequently my knee. Oh shit. I twisted my knee big time. Dead duck. I collapsed on the ground. The medic ran in. I know this medic from a lot of matches, all he does is put a lot of spray and some screwed massage. He can’t make out a dislocation from a fracture and he won’t know what to do about it. The only time I screamed was when I screamed at him not to touch my knee. I was scared about a crack and I didn’t want him testing it for sure.
So that way I spent most of time yesterday with the knee strapped up. I was at my in laws and my wife found the sight of me hopping around using her granny’s crutches extremely funny. In office my guys also find it extremely amusing to see me stuck to a chair the whole day. In fact they are dying to see me limp somewhere. They are also plotting on how they can get me to drink lots more water.
I only hope I get some cute chick sympathy in return for all my troubles… aaawwwwwwwwwww.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

soul

Barista has closed down their Nariman Point outlet. Sad. The only decent coffee shop in the area. I wonder why there aren’t more coffee shops in the country’s densest and possibly richest commercial district. Coffee probably makes less money than lunch and dinner, thus making a coffee shop unviable. Hmmmm. The NCPA bang in Nariman Point has a decent ‘campus’ with a few gardens thrown in. it must converted to a coffee shop during the day with some decent food for the lunchers. That might work. When developers develop land as a commodity it will purely price it self out most of the time. You cannot just sell land to the highest bidder. You need a good mix of all genres. Mall development is not about just leasing out the land and keeping it clean. It’s about getting your mix right with the complete package with some loss leaders and some winners. If Nariman point has to thrive as well, it must see itself as a one big entity and not as some disparate parts that make a whole. But our town planners will never understand that, I am sure. Nariman Point has no soul. What a pity. It is perfectly poised to have one.

Jispa at a movie….

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

tararumpum

I saw tararumpum over the holiday. It’s a movie that I will feel a little ashamed to say that I enjoyed. But fact of life is that I kinda liked it. I like any movie that shows struggle and triumph against odds. No matter how humbug it might be! Down and out, resilience and victory. Seeing this movie made me think that some day I must write about the various companies and the bosses that I worked for and my learnings from the same. I started very bad in corporate India. Very very bad. Some day I will write it about it and what I learnt from it. I almost got fired from my first job. The reason I did not get fired was that I resigned in time. Oh man. How wrong could I be in understanding job requirements.

In any case, the movie is quite ok. Not too hot. Might be a decent forgettable movie. But not irritating on your senses. Which compared to many other movies seems like a stand out. At least the stunts look nice and real. Jispa is slowly getting used to movies. Till now she could see only movies that were happy through and through.

Typically I have always had short closely cropped hair. For some reason I am growing it. Not that it is very long. Even remotely long. But it’s longer than what I like to have. Normally I just love the crew cuts and I realize that I need a haircut if I have to comb hair. So if I need to comb it then I NEED to cut it!