Beautiful People

Beautiful People

This is not about pics, but just recounting some beautiful people I have had a chance to interact with over the years..of course it’s a long list, so I am liable to miss out a few.. will do it in segments.

My Profs.- JD Singh, Gopal Valecha, SK Roy, Thirunarayana, AK Rao.

Colleagues- Bhagyalakshmi, Manasa Nagabhushanam, Shahida, Manoharan, Smita Dabholkar, Anant Ram, Tk Chatterjee, Ravi Gadgil, Vijayakumar, Dhanapal, Rajesh, Raghavendra, Pavan (and Jamuna), Yuvaraj, BK Mohanty, Avinash Mulky, MG Korgaonker, Veena, Mahboob, Gururaj Khasnis, YK Gaur (golf partner too), Jeyavelu, Tripti Srivastava, Saumyaa Sharma, Karu, CK Sharma, Muthu (and family), Jayanti Ranjan, Lubna Nafees, Murali Mohan, Sandeep Puri, Bhavna Bhalla, Harsh halve, Jitendra Sharma, Maheswaran,  Ekkirala, Milind Fadnavis, Indrajit Thakurata, Shweta Kushal, Bhuvanesh Pareek, Shinu Abhi, Leslie Price

Classmates- Avadhanulu, CS Murthy, K.S. Murthy, Nagarjuna, Seshu, Alok, Basudeo, Daddy Krishnamurthy, MN Rao, Huma Kidwai,

Childhood friends- Shashank, Sharat, Shalina, Shobhna, Manoj, Subodh, Anant, Milind, Chitrangi, Shubhangi, Avi, Ajit, Ashu, Kiran (and Neena), Prakash Kenjale

Cousins- Lots of them, and their kids too. Suhita-Miskil, Milind-Jui and saie, Mihir -Azam, Gauri-Malay and Kalpak, Jyotsna, Chitra-Varun, Meera-Shantanu and Medha, Bhavana -Aboli and Aparna, Sheela, Nirmala, Mrunal and Ragini, Rohini, Bhagyashree, Pratap, Pramila, Sheelu, Jayashree, Laxman, Chandraprabha, Lalita, and others

MBA Classmates- Prabhakar, Rajan, Uday, Nanda Kumar (Junior/Senior), Harish Chaudhry, Sunil Gupta, BB Dash, Venky, Rajeev Bhagwat, Lingaraju, Smoke Smoke, Hassled and Ph.D. classmates Ron Green, Godwin Udo, Massoud Abessi

Students- Nishka and Vikram Rathi, Dheeraj Mohan, Praveen Kotta, Sidharth Agarwala, Pushpak Sengupta, Aditi Sood, Sunil Kataria, Nidhi Kanungo, Savitha, Achint Arora, Nikhil Damle, Navroze Sethna, Jogeswari, Sharmistha Singh, Vidya TC, Swapna Gurijala, Smita Mohan, Padmapriya, Divyaa Sharma, Ranjana Rudra, Rashmi Manchanda, Deepa, Deepthi, Zargar Basharat, Shweta Jha, Sanket Vatavwala, Ankita Sahai, Aarushi Jain, Anjali Sharma, Anushka Mishra, Sandhya Sajeev, Pooja Daniel

Sonam Chirania, Sidhanta Patnaik, Aishwarya Omprakash, Isha Bhalla, Bharath Shenoy, Aashneet, Nagendra Shenoy, Chaitra Hegde, Shampa, Priyasmita, Roopsha, Mrunal, Arvind Joshi, Anusha Ramakrishnan from Finland, Shreya Sengupta, Viju Verghese, Veena Singh, Jensy

Kalaivani, Swathika Selvam, Madhan Rehan, Sadhana Lakshmi, Neha Adiga, Shatakshi Tripathi, Kshitija Deshmukh, Sapna Patni, Akash Gupta, Sruthi Chandrasenan, Anam Nuhi, Sanjana Rao Yarram, Shrunga Hede, Shreya Surana, Aradhya Vats, Bhuvneet Raheja, Kritika Gupta, Shivangi Goel, Garima Sachdeva, Fatima Rizvi, Thoshitha (my Osmania junior), Rohit Kumar, Arshia Mulla, Komal Nagdavne, Shruti Suman,  Harsghad Sachani, Tamros Mondal, Poonam Pawar, The Kaurs (Ruminder, Barleen, Harshdeep), Zenitha Das, Writabrita Ray, Tarun Imandi, Megha Bansal, Tanya Jakhar, Ansh Kathpalia, Pooja Talapatra, Anusha Mahendrakar, Aishani Verma,

Shuchi Bhatnagar, Sampark Sachdeva, Shreyashi, Abhinav Kamal, Aditi Gupta, Garima Shah, Pradyumna Mohanty, Harshad Lunavat, Vivek Anant, Shubhangi Khare, Madhulika Gaur, Roshan Kanth, Merwin James, Esheeta Ghosh, Abdullah Ahmad, Nikita Kumar, Aditya Naag, Shruti Sharma, Shweta Sinha, Sheetal Garg, Aditi Chawla Vaidya, Abha Kulkarni, Tosha Dubey, Urvasi Anand, Siri Adi, Khyati Jha, Divya Singh, Supriya Jain, Surbhi Mehta Chaddha,  Kanika Mhendiratta, Anchal Sharma, Nandini  Saxena, Animesh Jain, Ratnashree Tripathi, Phalguni Banerjee Basu, Twinkle Jain, Shraddha Nigdikar, Surbhi Tandon, Momi Saha, Arundhati Singh, Vaishali Bathla, Sreeram (and Gowri), Meghana Joshi, Meghna Sinha,  Anshita Chetty, Aashish (and Anusha), Anumeha Saxena, Pavan Tarawade, Kedar Muley, Ravi Mittal, Adarsh Kamat, Palak Narang, Bhawana Moondra, Meenu Mynam, Aishwarya Iyer, Anjali Iyer, Ishan (and Ankita) Joshi, Keyur Bhalavat, Manjari Mundanad, Punyashlok Dwibedy, Rupam Verma, Neha Jha, Swati Sinha, Bhawana Sahay, Vrinda Khanna, Pallavi Sharma, Shafique Gajdhar, Ishita Modi, Laura Shah, Grafila Jain, Yamini Shah

Friends Made in Later Life- Samrendra and Annie Singh, Dr. Soni and Shakun, Indira, Poonam and Ashwani Bhatia, Subbu, Sunil Kapoor, Om Prakash and Geeta Chaudhary, Sandeep and Mamta Bansal, Rajni, Satish and Rimjhim Verma, Milind Chalisgaonkar, Rajan Mani, Virender Gupta, Naveen Sinha, Mohan Gopalratnam, Jyothi Gurumurthy and Nagendra Rao, Usha, Shiva and Lalita Chidambaram, Ratnamadhavi, Lakshmi Rajagopal, Vijji Ganesh, Yogesh Kale, Umesh Jadhav, Venkatesh Gopalan,Subho, Vijila Kennedy

Some are still online friends- haven’t got around to meeting them. Like Pritu Shetty, Aiswarya Manazhy,..

Oldest Pics on Photos

These are some of the oldest pics I found online in my storage, on Google Photos.

Above- Hyderabad Hilton. Our campus hotspot.

The next few are from Amsterdam..it was a visit for a conference, my third to the city.

Vondel Park, if I remember correctly, above.

Candid- a busy square in Amsterdam, above.

Ten Commandments of the Lockdown

Thou shalt wash your hands every hour.

Thou shalt not depend on the maid.

Thou shalt refrain from unnecessary shopping.

Men shall do equal part of household work.

Men with children shall change diapers.

Men shall restrict consumption of beer.

Thou shalt photograph every meal for posterity..but without makeup, you shalt not photograph anyone against their wishes.

The technology of Zoom shalt be put to good use.

Do not covet anyone, and be six feet away from all.

The mask-do not forget to wear it at all times, man or woman or child.

and finally, even after the lockdown ends,..thou shalt not try to save the world.

Photo shoot for 32nd Anniversary

We decided to let Prarthana shoot us, and the results were awesome. See for yourself. We tried three looks- Vietnamese, South Indian, and Rajasthani.

Having a photographer at home is a blessing!

Contactless Education?

IIT Bombay has announced that it will run online classes this year. Others may follow. What does this mean for classroom education? Assuming we return to the pre-COVID world at our own pace, will education remain the same? Or will this cataclysm drive a change in it forever?

Nobody knows, but maybe we are at a tipping point, in that students and whoever pays for education (parents, banks), may just re-evaluate the options -in particular, for higher education at the graduate/post grad. levels. Is it necessary to attend a class as a cohort to get that coveted certification, or are there alternatives that can get you to the same place?

I am of course an old-world teacher (I did not say old fogey- you may have thought it). I am a believer in old-world everything..almost. The feedback and joy of seeing faces and expressions up close can't be beaten by anything, in my view. Classes threaten to be more impersonal, and that personal touch- a look, a smile, or a frown will be hard to catch. It would resemble play-acting rather than a real experience, if done on-line. Maybe we will move towards more objective testing, as it's easier to do online.

Some subjects (and teachers) may find it harder than others. At the school level, inequality may rise due to lack of access to smartphones or laptops among some students. Will the system take care of these? Schools may get back to traditional learning before the others due to these and other issues.

Anniversary Number 32

Coming up soon on June 26th is our wedding anniversary. This is an attempt at looking back through photographs.

Jab we met and decided to get hitched. Some traditions, at Pune, Patrakaar Nagar.

The families get into a frame. My BIL, and brother/sister are in it. Both parents too.

Many memories created over the years.

Clemson, our first abode after we got married. (below- Work-in-progress)

Thanks to our friend Anne Pouliquen, we had an amazing tour of France-she clicked this. Below, a recent one from Sanchi (around the stupa) and then, not-so-recent from Bhubaneswar (another stupa nearby)

Before I became a pain in the neck (above), and after (below)-

On our way to Udaipur (above) and after getting there (below).

 

Along the way, Prarthana and Pooja came along..proving we were religious!

We laughed with friends globally, from Coimbatore (above) to California (Neena, in pic below, lives there)

..attended weddings (with the bride, Aditi, in Bangalore in 2019 October).

and had parties large and small..with students doing karaoke, to music buddies in a large gathering, or small get-togethers (next 3 pics)..

to chai parties.. (below, with Bhagyalakshmi and Venkatesh)

..and went to exotic places like Cambodia, Angkor Wat complex (above), and Ha Long Bay cruise, Vietnam (below).

Generally, it's been an exciting time, fights included.

O P Nayyar

The man, more than his music. A book I read has a chapter devoted to O.P. Nayyar, the music director from Lahore. He had a unique style of composing, and he was most known for his songs sung by Asha Bhosle. Also for the hoofbeat rhythm, that he used a lot.

There are anecdotes (as narrated by him to the author) about Guru Dutt, and many film-makers like S. Mukherjee (a bigwig in those days, and the father of Deb Mukherjee, a terrible actor even in his evaluation-the father's), Pancholi (this one's from Lahore), B.R. Chopra, and many others like Madhubala (who fell out with Dilip Kumar over a court case by B.R. Chopra because she refused to go outdoors for shooting his film-probably Naya Daur). Guru Dutt gave him some Bing Crosby records which inspired him to create a few songs in his film Aar Paar, he admits.. I think Ja ja ja ja bewafaa is one of those.

He was also a unique person, who liked style. A hat and natty clothes were his trademark. But he is very open about (and critical about) many things, including his own negatives. But he says, having gone through Partition after 1947, and a forced shift to Amritsar from Lahore, nothing could shake him.

Saigal, Pankaj Mullick, and their films made by New Theatres (Calcutta), he says, brought in a whiff of a different sensibility in the earthy Punjabi folks at Lahore, and they looked forward to their new films.

There are references to his fights with family members, and tiffs with film people including Guru Dutt, and producers. But he acknowledges the role played by many of them, as well as his friends in the industry in giving him breaks. He was a man who lived by his own rules, and did not regret it one bit. Worth a look (this book is in Marathi, by Ambarish Mishra, a journalist. It also has chapters on Shobha Gurtoo, Saadat Hasan Manto, and others).