Politics of Identity and Identification

 Just who are you? It's not enough that you were born here, or brought up here, or that your parents lived here for all their lives. You have to prove again and again that you are a citizen. That is what it has come to, with the way SIR has gone till date. That's for the voter who wants to vote-supposed to be the right of every eligible citizen.

If you have been a customer (of a bank, or an insurance company, or a credit card company), you are deemed 'unknown' until you are 'known'- through a process called the KYC or Know Your Customer (the bank is supposed to know you only at the end of this stupid and repetitive process, even if you had an account with them for ages). What sense does that make? If you suspect someone of not having credentials, or financial fraud, why not go after those guys and leave the rest of us alone? 

Why can't LIC just ask you to show up with an ID card to prove you Exist? Why the rigmarole of getting somebody's signature on a piece of paper? Why not sign it yourself if the customer (for a Pension) shows up? It's too simple? You have not tortured the customer adequately? Or is it that you don't want to pay up?

Cheers to our bureaucrats who think up these amazing ideas.. and we pay for it!

Tribute to the Burmans

 SD Burman and RD Burman. Two of the best tunemakers in Hindi films. This was a program based on the songs they created. SD Burman was a trendsetter, and his Aradhana music created two superstars- Rajesh Khanna in acting, and Kishore Kumar in singing.

Great song selection, by a group called Music Lovers in Pune-

The entire group above.

Veena Kulkarni and partner, below. She also sang Jaane jaan with Sagar. It was probably the best one of the evening. Her voice modulations (Asha Bhosle in the original) were amazing.

Visit to Gogte Institute at Belgaum

 I am an Adjunct Faculty and visit Gogte Institute once in a year to do some classes. This time it was on Strategic Management, and also met the first year MBA students during their inauguration. 

Glimpses from the visit.

With a group who did a nice presentation

Their standees in the MBA department, affiliated to VTU.

Another group during their presentation.

Below, at the railway station, an old card ticket on the wall

Below- view from Vande Bharat.. Hubli-Pune

A new lab with modern robots and CNC machines used for training engineering students. Prof. Sachin Kulkarni and a senior colleague.

My host Rajendra Inamdar from MBA dept.

An Age to Die?

 What's an appropriate age to die?

Maybe there's one for each one. A healthy human could live to be 100, or 90 plus. Some have, like my Mom and an aunt who just turned 90 this April.

But what is important (at least to me) is being healthy and as much as possible, independent to do your daily functions without help. Once you get dependent, I would feel helpless, and perhaps useless too. 

Any disease that steals your independence is a problem for you and everybody else around you. So it's debatable whether you would want to live when you are completely bed-ridden. There have been movies like Whose Life Is It Anyway, which treated this issue poignantly. I think the Hindi film Guzaarish also tackled this subject, about choosing to die if you think living is not worthwhile for these reasons.

I also remember reading a book where the author recommends 70 as the age to wind up one's journey here. He has his reasons. 

This post is merely speculating about the issue. I assure you I have no intention to die anytime soon. But it's worthwhile thinking about such a critical issue.

Bonds- A Reflection

 I have been able to bond with people quite easily. It could be students, colleagues from faculty or staff, and friends, classmates, and cousins/relatives. A new category has been added a few years ago- a music group on Facebook that I became a member of, and instantly made over a 100 like-minded friends who bonded over music.

I am not age-ist, and I am glad most of friends aren't. Or else, why would a twenty-something or a forty-something want to spend time with a Sixty-something like me? I have rarely been turned down when I proposed a meeting with alumni of different B schools that I taught in, in various cities- in India or abroad.

So I have met Smita Mohan in Dubai, Vidya and Swapna in Singapore, and countless alums of Kirloskar Institute, IMT Nagpur, or IIM Indore, IFIM, Vignana Jyoti Institute, or colleagues from IMT Ghaziabad, IMT Nagpur and elsewhere.. some names are Anshita Chetty, Rupam Verma, Aashish and Anusha Mamidanna, Gowri Kishore, Sreeram, Meghna Sinha, Sanjana Yarram, Swati Jain, Nishka Rathi, Sudeshna Ray Srivastava, Ranjana Rudra, Roopali Saxena, Deepthi Balagiri, Pratima Gaikwad, Savitha, Nikita Kumar/Ray, Shruti Sharma, Aditya Naag, Shafique Gajdhar, Abha Anagha Kulkarni, Tosha Dubey, Siri Adi, Anuj Mathew, Anushka Mishra, Bharath Shenoy, Vishakha Sugandh, Anusha Soni, Garima Shah, Pushpinder Singh, Harshad Lunavat, Phalguni Banerjee, Ananya Nani De, Divya Singh, Swatika Selvam, Jogeswari, Padmapriya Janakiraman, Amit Gope, Mohan Gopalratnam (both from XIM Bhubaneswar back in 1993).

And colleagues from IMT Nagpur like Tk Chatterjee, Smita Dabholkar, Veena Pailwar, Saleena Khan, and others, IIMK staff members from my day who are still there, Keyur Purani and SSS Kumar and Neeraj Dwivedi who were faculty colleagues there, Jayasimha and Shweta Kushal from IIM Indore, and Ph.D. students from IIM Indore like Prachi Jain, Akansh Khandelwal, Pratishtha Batra, Vartika Varyani, Neeti Ingole and Geeti Mishra.

I have also met Vrinda Khanna and Surbhi Mehta Chaddha, Pallavi Bajpai, Abhinav Kamal, Aditi Gupta (who played Golf at IMT Nagpur). Probably a few more that I am missing right now.

Discovering New Singers

 I keep going to music shows by the dozen, in Pune as most are free, and available in plenty. I have discovered a few decent singers earlier, and one more-Dashrath Chavan- got added to that list this week. He sings Kishore Kumar numbers really well, with the bells and whistles. Om Shanti Om from Karz and Pag Ghungroo from Namak Halal were two he sang almost to perfection. Part of a program called Woh Bhi Kya Daur Tha-

Here he is-above.

With Meera Shinde, above.

Below- Lalita Jagdale, another good singer.

Jailer 2- Rajnikanth Film Review

 Saw this action and comedy-packed film yesterday (Oct 20th) in Pune. It continues the story of retired Jailer Tiger Muthuvel Pandian in and around Coimbatore and Kerala. Ends in Goa. The outdoor locations are nice, and the story, though predictable, has some good twists. The cast is competent, though dominated by Rajini's screen presence, as expected. His fans (me included) find something magical about him- he lights up the screen.

Enjoyable on the whole, though the songs and dances are a bit over-the-top. 4.5 on 5 from me. The special effects are good, in particular. Special appearances by Shivaraj kumar, Mohanlal, Hrithik Roshan and Jackie Shroff add to the charm.