How to be 61

 

This is a lesson for all who want to be 61 (I will be, soon)- or more. I may have a bit more to say next year.

1. Be a little more boring. I mean, look for excitement now and then, but not all the time.

2. Enjoy others' accomplishments, forget about yours. 

3. Play or converse with kids of any age. Related to point 1, because this is always exciting.

4. Eat and taste good food of different kinds. While the going is good. You may not have teeth for too long, so take a good bite.

5. Try out drinks too, if you are the kind who does. It's legal, and quite OK, if you don't drink from the bottle. My favourites have been Single Malts of various kinds, and brandy -VSOP if affordable. Hennessey and so on. Sometimes, wines or beer-craft, preferably. Rum is a standby when you run out of money.

6. Try Golf. Or Badminton, or Tennis. Even Table Tennis, if that's what you like. Keeps you social. Bridge is another favourite, though I haven't played it in ages. Avoid online games, unless impossible.

7. Travel if Corona's not around. Even a drive to nowhere, 50 kilometres away from any city, is refreshing. And if you can travel to meet family and friends, nothing like it. 

8. Read whatever you like. It can keep away boredom, particularly if you are retired. Browse in bookstores, rather than online. Gives you exercise too.

9. Make new friends, maybe online if not offline. It's invigorating. You can also join online communities. I am a part of a music group, and a PG Wodehouse Fan club. 

10. Give advice, without worrying about it being taken seriously. It won't, but you did your job, so.. 

Information is a Big Bottleneck

 Perhaps the biggest, in getting anything done, or getting a service from any organisation. The biggest reason in the explosion of some services like home delivery of food, for example, is the menus from multiple restaurants becoming available online- that is information. Similarly, e-commerce or taxi services make information available to both parties-payment platforms too come in- and therefore make many things possible. The internet also plays a role, as people search for many things, and find most.

Typically, government office transactions have been slow to become transparent, but it is happening. The Vaccine efforts have been particularly good with online registration, and reports. Would have been tough otherwise. Though there is digital disparity in India and elsewhere, digitally available info helps. And you can always have a hybrid model with help available manually for those who need it. In turn, they can do the digital part of the transaction. My theory is that the hybrid model is good for our country, and can generate employment too, by being intermediaries between two parties.

The point is, nothing else moves until information on how to do anything is available easily. Marketers of services particularly need to be aware of this. 

Digitizing Slides

 I was quite a photography enthusiast, and continue to be one. One experiment I had tried out in the U.S. was to shoot slides which could then be projected on a screen or a wall with a slide projector. We never owned a slide projector, and occasionally borrowed one and had screenings.

I found these slides lying around and got some of the better ones digitized at G.K. Vale, in Bangalore recently. Pretty good, they turned out. Some of these-

Many of these are Fall colours in the U.S.- an amazing sight!

October-Birthdays and Celebrations

 Well, at least a few birthdays to remember.. my own, of course, and my brother's are both in October. Also my Father-in-law's, though he is no more. And my niece Anjali shares hers with Mahatma Gandhi. That's a lot of birthdays to handle in a month!

My birthday gift, an artist friend drew it.

Below, my Mom with my favourite niece Maya, a few years ago.

Mom's birthday, last year (2020)/My favourite food, below.

More favourite food- poha in North Karnataka style.

Below..birthdays make me thoughtful.

Below..more favourites..food for thought, and drink for thought.

October is also associated with festivities in India. Usually, we have either Dasara or Diwali or both around this time. Therefore, the Amazons and Flipkarts and many other retailers are in an overdrive, and try to sell as much as possible- the equivalent of the Christmas season in the West, for retailers.

Generally, there is an overdose of food and we feel its after-effects. Many traditional snacks were once made at home, including sweets like Karanji (similar to Gujiya in the North), Chakli or Murukku, and laddoos of some kind. Now, maybe retailers offer these too, on demand.

The pandemic in India seems to be on the wane right now, and maybe vaccination and natural immunity caused by the Second Wave played a role. Hopefully, a Third Wave will be mild or non-existent. The schools and colleges may get back to their normal mode of functioning, and maybe corporates too. 

Here's wishing all you readers the best of the festive season.

Mural Memories From IIM Bangalore

 I wrote for the Mural, our real wall magazine, at IIMB during my MBA. Some of that material still remains with me, as I was one of the two editors, along with Dash. A trip down the memory lane.. I was called names, or rather, I called myself names-as you can see in some of these.

Above- an ad named after my neighbour, Sujit.

Above- a joke about Jockey, a classmate..poetic justice?

Just a name I called myself- advising people.

Shanks was a batchmate..this was directed at him..

Above and below..I created this character and Rajan baptised him..we were both Wodehouse fans.

I fashioned the Lord after what I knew from reading Wodehouse, entirely.

Poetry (above) and cartoons by Vijjy aka Vijayaraghavan enlivened our days.

and PJs, of course. We also did a commemorative volume of some of these writings.

KIAMS Memories

 We were a bunch of five or six profs., and a few staff members who saw KIAMS develop its first batch of MBA/PGDM in 1998-2000. This was after a couple of years of pure-play training involving Kirloskar group executives, and a few others. It was a challenge, and we did a good job, albeit with small numbers. An ad that said "World Class Mgt. Program from the House of Kirloskars", and interviews done in Delhi and Bangalore for admissions, setting up the syllabus, and running the first batch, were all stimulating-like a startup. I am still in touch with many of that first batch, so we must have done something right. Here are a few colleagues from then.

 

The Art of the Selfie

I am still learning, thanks to teachers who are much younger- because the selfie is an art that has developed during the generation who are Digital Natives, and not Converted Analogs like me. Here is a collection, mine and those of others-

Milind, a cousin, with my Mom and others.

Anushka Mishra tries one on the 13th Floor- it was not unlucky at all.

A friend in New Zealand with family.

Below, a random walk resulted in meeting Nagendra Shenoy, a former student.