Madhosh Kiye Jaa: October 2019

Leading Life Online and Other Ponderables

Imagination is supposed to be the difference between man and (other) animals.

Here's letting some of it loose-

What if we could lead our lives online? What do we really need to do offline? Work life can certainly be online 90% of the time. And online marriages can probably succeed as well as offline ones..you just need to figure out how to throw pots and pans at each other online..I am sure our I.T. guys are capable of doing that, given time.

What if instead of freebies, we made everything free? How will the world change? Karl Marx must be shuddering at this leap of faith beyond what even he thought of.

What if we banned jargon? Lawyers (and MBAs) may cease to exist, and all corporates would have to mend their ways. Point 2 above anyway would have shut down marketing departments.

What if all Heads of Government disappeared? Would the world be a better place? And national boundaries? (I can already see the smile broaden on your face...)

I could go on,..but the real nightmare is if Apple disappeared from our Garden of Eden, isn't it?

Second life becomes First life..any takers?

Review of Marathi Film Half Ticket (Tikit)

This is an amazing film about two kids in a poverty-stricken family who live in a slum. Yet, they smile a lot, enjoy life eating Crow's eggs (and naming themselves after them too) and making small money from collecting coal dropped by wagons. They also have a friend, Tutti Frutti, who is older, but understands them perfectly.

Their life changes when a pizza shop opens in the neighbourhood. They have a Don Quixotic desire to eat a pizza, and try many failed shenanigans. Finally, an unexpected turn of events gets them what they wanted.

Very interestingly conceived, directed, and acted in, all three main actors- the mother, and the two boys- deserve an award. They may have got them too, as this is a 2016 film. The director deserves one too, for an excellent film. See it on Netflix/Amazon. It's on one of them, I forget which.

Why Teaching Videos Don't Work

Well, theoretically, they could. Even before AI came along, teachers should have been replaced by videos shot with similar content. So why has that not happened?

For one, they are (usually) boring. The are like canned food. Cooking live is so much more than the content, right? It's the process..or freshness, if you like.

The video remains the same, whenever you play it. But no two classes on the same subject by the same teacher are the same. There is spontaneity, new things happen either because of the teacher, or because of the students.

Peer learning is missing, and so is the social nature of a real classroom. These are not trivial, they add value to learning. We are not computers, who can be fed "learning". We also have to enjoy what happens while we learn.

Armchair Travel to Portugal and Spain

Armchair anything is easier than the real thing. Travel, infinitely cheaper. But someone has to travel. Never mind who does, if you wish to partake of the benefits, you can, by listening to their stories. I sometimes tell stories, but this is about listening. And pics. From Portugal and Spain.

Pics IIM Kozhikode or Calicut

I worked at IIM Calicut a couple of years, many years ago. I still think it is the prettiest IIM campus. If you don't believe me, see for yourself-you might just agree!

Names That I Like

Not sure why, I like the sound of these names. Not to be confused with people...I may like them too, of course. Also, does not mean I don't like all other names-maybe I didn't think of them. I think I have written elsewhere about all the people I like, this is only about some names (in other words, don't unfriend me coz your name is missing here 😂)

First, names of the female gender- Arundhati, Meghna, Shobhna, Shahida, Shalini, Tosha, Sirisha, Sanjana, Srishti, Vidisha, Tanaya, Shrunga, Roshni, Kalaivani, Damini, Priya, Tabassum, Irawati, Shruti, Bhawana, Shilpashree, Rajashree, Asmita, Yamini, Chhaya, Lauren, Gauri, Shreyasi, Isha, Nisha, Miskil, Jyotsna, Nidhi, Manjari, Nikita, Neha, Samudrika, Urmi, Urvashi, Shayari, Gunjan, Amulyaa, Divya, Anam, Sneha, Jui, Juhi, Grafila, Vhosky, Shefali, Kavya, Henna, Saumya,..

The Male Gender: Narendra, Vishesh, Raghav, Mohan, Alok, Tanmay, Prabhakar, Vinay, Dave, Zargar, Milind, Mark, Srinivas, Kalpak, Mihir, Kiran, Yuvaraj, Pavan, Arvind, Amlan, Parikshit, Kaavish, Vivek, ...

Photography

Photography has been a hobby ever since I was the subject of photographs thanks to my parents, and started clicking one or two pictures myself. First it was the 120 roll, black and white, and then came other sizes of film. INDU and ORWO brands of film were the popular ones, and Agfa Click cameras. I also learnt how to develop and print photos.

This is a shot of my wife (right) in her young days.. I have many from that era too.

Then, Hotshot cameras came in, and made picture-taking easy, with Aim and Shoot (pre-focused for a wide range) cameras. After that, I started on a journey of sorts with a Pentax camera bought from a friend in Delhi. Colour films happened in between around 1983, and Colour Labs charged around Rupees 5 for a print. 36 print-rolls were common then, with Sakura being a prominent brand, and Kodak the other. I had also bought a Canon camera promoted by Andre Agassi as a model. Many of my pics in the U.S. and Europe were shot with this.

This explains my tryst with photography, before digital cameras took over, and then mobile cameras.

Review of The Sky is Pink

True stories are sometimes difficult to handle. The Sky is Pink is an uplifting story of a child (actually, two) with a rare condition at birth which requires expensive treatment to just keep her alive. The treatment works, but with a twist in the tale.

Parenting, which is not easy at the best of times, takes a toll on the parents of a special child. It is all worthwhile, is what the film portrays, and well. My major criticism is the length of it, which is 20 minutes too much, in my view. A little more cheer would perhaps have helped, too.

The Gold standard for films in this genre for me is Anand, which is much more upbeat, and Mili, which was a bit too morose for my liking. This one's somewhere in-between, but will keep you engaged for most of its run. Farhan Akhtar is good, and Priyanka Chopra sometimes overacts, but is still good. Zaira Waseem steals the show.

The touches that make it contemporary, such as the language used by the narrator (the kid herself), are welcome. London being a constant escape route/destination is a bit strange, in these times.

Birthday Greens

It is definitely not the blues. Could be greens, or new green shoots that seem to appear from somewhere to brighten up the day, or many days. Had a great time meeting many classmates at a wedding of a friend's daughter, and then met a few old students, and another old friend, and went golfing- all in the space of a few days. Also a week or two earlier, met some grand-kids at Grandmama's Cafe where we had a rehearsal of cutting my birthday cake. I got the royal treatment from Shatakshi and Varun (literally, Shahi Tukda) at their place a day before D Day! That's the first pic-

Another first was getting some Make-up on , with my own special artist- the bride's friend- before the wedding! After all, we had to keep pace with the lovely young lady!

Above- a first batch student of Kirloskar, Savitha, and I.

Above- Wedding guests with the well-dressed host at the centre.

Gatherings at the wedding.

Earlier meetups.. Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Gurgaon, Ahmedabad, etc.

There was a lot of banter, reminiscing, gossip, and some enlightening (for me, at least) conversation thrown in. I tried acknowledging all the facebook birthday wishes, and gave up after a while- there were just too many to handle. So I just went into a group mode to thank all those who took the pains. It was a few hundred, ranging from Lithuania and the U.S., to Kolkata (in spite of Durga Puja) and the rest of India.

What I do enjoy the most is catching up with people in person, so I was happy to do a bit of that in the last couple of months. The old ad of Thums Up- Food, Friends and Thums Up, can cure any blues. Adrak wali chai bhi ho sakti hai, instead of Thums Up (Shatakshi, are you listening?).

Golfing After a While

There are many unexplored Golf courses around. One of my wishes is to play on lots of them. So one more was checked off recently, the ASC at Bangalore. Thanks to Muthu, my golfer friend (we were friends before we turned regular golfers). Some pics-

Tee near the tee.

Selfie for starters..

..and one later..

That guy behind is swinging, but I have the ball.

Never forget the views..even when you concentrate on your game.

..because they are fabulous.

Like this tree, which resembles the logo of some corporate.

This man was also found swinging his club around.
..and this one joined him.

Below- the family, with Muthu behind me, his FIL sitting with me, (and his BIL and his wife)..there's a 'swing' involved here too.

Wedding of a Friend's Daughter

Weddings are certainly an Indian speciality, with multifarous dimensions. One such was that of Aditi, a friend's daughter. Lots of IIMB classmates and spouses added spice or zing to the proceedings. Some pics-