Posts

Zinda Hoon Yaar..Kaafi Hain

Image
Sometimes, a song conveys what you are feeling at the very moment.  Amit Trivedi's new song "Zinda" from the upcoming movie Lootera is one such song.  Have been listening to Lootera and Raanjhanaa on loop recently. Pretty good songs in it. Also, the song Ambarsariya from Fukrey is beautiful.

Innovation

INNOVATION - One word which does manage to irritate me when I hear it being bandied by all and sundry in our industry. The myth of innovation is that it starts with entrepreneurs, but it really starts with people having fun. The Wright brothers weren't trying to build an airline, they were saying, "Holy shit, do you think we could fly?" The first kids who made snowboards, they just glued skis together and said, "Let’s try this!" With the web, none of us thought there was money in it. People said, "This document came from halfway around the world.  How awesome is that! "                                     -  Tim O’Reilly A couple of good links on innovation. http://blogs.hbr.org/taylor/2012/05/please_can_we_all_just_stop_innovating.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304791704577418250902309914.html

Quote

Read some beautiful lines wrote by the recently deceased Roger Ebert .     “‘Kindness’ covers all of my political beliefs,” he wrote, at the end of his memoirs. “No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.”

Quote

Read this on twitter and think it is very apt. It is true; almost every one is a stranger; we should realize it. Even the few we see frequently, so frequently that from this frequency we draw the right to call them friends, even these become strangers again and again. Life changes, and they change with life, every one in his own way, every one in a different way, for life is multiform and things are multivalent. How life is going to treat us, we cannot say; where it is going to hit us is unknown. Only the effects of the change become apparent; but then it is too late, since the process of the change cannot be reversed, not with the other person nor with ourselves. - J.H. van den Berg The Changing Nature of Man, 1961
Shaliesh Kapoor in his  post  talks about a new trend in movie going where youngsters are using it as just another hangout place. Quite an interesting point of view and which I agree too. Do read his post at  http://shaileshkapoor.com/2012/07/01/watching-a-movie-no-just-hanging-out/

Chetan Bhagat's New Book

Chetan Bhagat's new book "Revolution 2020" is a breezy read as always. I can never make one thing out. Are Bollywood films based on his books or his books based on Bollywood films? Well, at least his template for the books stay consistent as displayed by Chutney Case in the The Chetan Bhagat Plot Generator .

Linkalogy

One of my friend Sourabh Jain blogs over at http://sourabhkavi.blogspot.com/ . Do hop over and read. East Cost in US has been badly hit by the snow over the past 2 days. Some links to the sites hosting the photos are given below. http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/12/27/2729116/blizzard-buries-east-coast-states.html http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2010/12/27/captured-east-coast-snow-storm/2603/ http://www.boston.com/community/photos/raw/onassignment/2010/122610_snow/#/item-6935 The personal experience of this blizzard was pretty interesting with the 3 of us being first time snow drivers and all that. It took us 2 hours to reach our apartment from our friends place which normally would take 10 minutes. It involved a lot of shovelling, pushing the car, driving on the wrong lane, taking longer routes, stopping in the middle of the road and all that. Much fun was had and thankfully everyone was safe. Larry David's column in the NY Times regarding the tax cu

Writing

I started this blog a few years back but I hardly post anything. Its not that there are no subjects on which I can write on but I hardly feel the motivation to devote 30-60 minutes everyday to actually write something. Also, my writing is pretty average so I do not want to subject my few friends to torture who read this blog on a regular basis. When I started this blog, I thought I will write about varied subjects and I will write them regularly. But whenever I think of writing, the words do not seem to flow. Also, limited grammar and a limited vocab do not help towards the cause of writing. I used to write what I think is poetry too but it used to be so bad that I laugh at them myself whenever I turn the pages. Actually, I am not sure why I am suddenly rambling about writing. The above ramblings are totally incoherent and I cannot even blame alcohol for it.

Travelogues

One of the new blogs which I have been following recently is of Deepak Iyer . He is a fellow who loves trekking; so that is one thing that makes me read his blogs. He had been to Peru and Mexico in the last few months. One can read his experience of Peru over here and his Mexico escapades over here . Do read them. I recently missed going to Ecuador with Abhilash but surely, I would follow one advice which Deepak gives about travelling which is to travel alone. I have travelled alone a far bit in India but have never done that outside India. So, this is one experience which I want to have as soon as possible. Hopefully, I plan something for the coming summer.

Request for Help

One of Mattu's acquaintance is suffering from Multiple Myeloma (a form of blood cancer). Her condition is serious and she needs a stem cell match immediately.  Her family has launched a site www.savesanjana.org to help them out in their search.   Please spread the word; see if we can help her. More information for Multiple Myeloma is available at http://www.aadp.org and http://www.marrow.org

Links

A nice article about consulting work. The below lines touched a chord. What I learned is that burning out isn’t just about work load, it’s about work load being greater than the motivation to do work. It was relatively easy to drag myself to classes when I thought I was working for my own betterment. It was hard to sit at a laptop and crank out slides when all I seemed to be accomplishing was the transfer of wealth from my client to my company. Read the entire article here. Another article about the rock scene journalism in India at Tehelka . Do not agree with everything but one can give it a quick read. Barcelona thrashed Real Madrid 2-0 in what was billed to be the game of the year. Everyone praised Messi but the real star for some was Xavi. If ever the word "underated" deserved to be tagged to someone, it is Xavi. A good article on Xavi's performances at guardian blog . And another one at Zonalmarking.

Quote of the Day

The older I get, the more impressed I am by the importance of human diversity. We're all so different  and a good thing, too. We need all kinds of people. We need people who can express their emotions (actors, for example) and people who can control their emotions (surgeons, for example); we need people who are doers and pushers, people who make things happen. We also need people who are reflective, caring and intuitive. We need people who are interested in things, and people who are interested in people. We need all the traditional opposites: artists and critics, coaches and players, bosses and underlings. Male and female. And somehow, we've just got to get along.  - Michael Crichton

Google's shift with respect to China

This is massive news at least for the folks who had started wondering if Google had crossed over to the other side. Google takes a new approach to China business   We would need to wait and watch for the events to unfold and see how the Chinese government reacts to this. Wonder if Indian companies too will take such a stand in the near future and refuse to do business with authorities who are corrupt in nature.

Some Links...

Best of Luck to TCP on his new project :-) Friends for a longer life :-) (via. nanopolitan ) Read Sunil Gavaskar's interview by Wharton.  (via. Churumuri ) Malcolm Gladwell on David beating Goliath . A bit long but a good read. Portrait of Prabhakaran . Its from the Sri Lanka's propaganda machine but some of the photos are quite interesting. Microsoft's Reply to Grassley on H1-B Visa . Larry Page's University of Michigan Commencement Address.

Some thoughts...

Image
While voting for the Lok Sabha elections, the age old question arises. Should one vote for the candidate or for the party? This was my second chance to vote in the Lok Sabha elections. I definitely knew who the better candidate was in my constituency; no doubt about it but surely, I did not want his party to form the government. So, for the first time I went against my better judgement and have voted against a party rather than voting for a party/candidate. I never knew that I had such strong views about who should form or not form the government but I guess life is all about discovering oneself each day :-) ========================================================= The IPL season is underway and this time, the cup is anyone's game unlike last year where Chennai and Rajasthan were the two best teams. This year, all the teams are pretty evenly matched and the final four can be anyone. Hopefully, Mumbai Indians lift the cup this time :-) My choice of final four would be Mumbai

Thought for the Day

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.

Movie Review

Saw a movie in a theatre after a long time. Firaaq is a good movie and it was nice to see that movies on current topics are being made by the Hindi film industry. Firaaq is set after one month of the riots that happened in Gujarat and maps the stories of people belonging to different strata of the society who were affected by riots. Also, the cast of movie is top rate but then that is expected where the names include Paresh Rawal, Naseerudin Shah, Deepti Naval. The supporting cast also was pretty good. Sahana Goswami stood out in Rock On and here, she further gives proof that she should be seen in more movies. Loved Amruta Subhash too (yeah, I know her; I did tolerate her Marathi serial for quite a long time). Sanjay Suri as a part of the upper class who gets away most of the time because of his name and Hindu wife (Tisca Chopra) was pretty good too. The strong point in the movie was the subtlety. There was always a specter of violence looming ahead but one never actually gets to

Link As Always...

Trickle Up Innovation. Interesting read. Thank the government for the inflation. Purple Pitara pens some thoughts which she hoped she would have heard when she was given a send off from her school. (Link via. Neelakantan ) Gaurav's translation of Pu La over here. Pratam Bhanu Mehta's article on the Telegraph incident which was completely ignored by the media. Annie blogs about it here . Kindness of Strangers. Hillarious!

Phunny!

Check out the below link from Dawn. Really funnay and scary. Replace Pakistan with India and you can recreate a similar conversation. Naked Lunch : Nadeem F. Paracha

No Reason

When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for the Jews, I remained silent; I was not a Jew. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.