Kutte Ki Maut

While driving back home from college after a long day today, I saw from a distance a white mass lying on the road.

A polythene bag might have been dragged in by wind from somewhere, I first thought. Or may be a piece of a newspaper. Or a torn vest that was being used to clean a bike before getting dropped without the biker's knowledge. I drew closer and saw it was a white dog. Without life.

It was intact, its innards not spilled on the road. However, the jaw was gone, indicating a severe hit on the head. That's it. Its time on the street was over. Its time to rummage through garbage was over. Its time to scare the motorcyclists was over. The curse of urchin's life was over.

Every dog I guess must be dying in a similar fashion.

Waiting to cross the road. Then the dog in the middle of the road, tentative and calculative. A vehicle closes in, dog is afraid. Beats a hasty retreat on reflex without looking and gets hit by another speeding vehicle. The death is usually so quick that in the next moment it lies silent on the tar, a stream of blood travelling on the hot road and thickening on the way. Flies are usually the first ones to reach the accident spot. Well, they are the only ones to reach (of course sometimes the municipality finally removes them if it's in the middle of the city).

Now juxtapose this with the death that came calling to the 89 people at AMRI hospital in the wee hours of that fateful day.

If you compare, there are only two things that are boring about the dog's death: No one particularly to cry and make a scene and very dull pose while dying (almost all the dogs lie on their sides, their four legs in accusatory gesture, their jaws open and neck turned in obtuse angle).

But the dog's death is usually quick and painless.

Back at AMRI hospital, people would have screamed their lungs out and cried for help. Those who were in the ICU must have looked with horror through their oxygen masks and seen the ghastly death closing on them, slowly. They must have tried to get up and failed. Some would have tried to run away to be lifted back to death by the billowing smoke. Some would have called their near and dear ones to let them know that they were dying (there is at least documentary evidence on this). Some would have tore away the support systems and bloods and salines connected to their bodies and run for that elusive life. Some might as well have jumped out like many techies did on a previous occasion and died a better, less painful death below.

For most, death came slowly. When you are fully aware that there is no way you can live. When your lungs start chocking on carbon dioxides and monoxides. When your eyes pop out and your mouth gasps for that oxygen which till now was always around you.

Alright. So here is the fascination of Bollywood with dogs. "Shaitan, tu kutte ki maut marega".

I wonder if that should be changed to "Kameene, insaan ki maut marega tu". Ha.

Think over.

Happy Women's Day

You are the origin of life, but also the biggest killer of the male species. You are peace-loving but start many a mutinies. You feed the world and yet leave men so hungry for more. You drive slow on fast lane and teach men the art of overtaking. You take away their pain and teach them loving. You give us the weekend columns and the malls and romantic movies. They don't probably know, but you make Women's Day so meaningless. Because it's you that gives the world men and continue to be the fairer sex in an unfair world. Happy Women's day to the most enigmatic gender known to mankind...oops, human beings!

Chal Meri Luna

While cycling back home from a morning cycling trip to the Bhubaneswar Golf Club, I passed a Luna overloaded with gunny sacks hanging on its slender sides, moving up a slope. I was slow, tired as I was from over an hour of cycling. But the Luna beat me. It was slower, decisively, moving up the slope with a painful grunt and a consummate unwillingness. The sight brought back several memories from the days gone by. The pre-liberalized India of DD Metros and Premier Padminis. Of Contessas and Maruti 1000s!

But yeah, Luna is a particularly fond memory etched forever in my then tender mind through the simplistic but catchy "Chal Meri Luna" ad that showed what a workhorse the anemic Luna was. How it was willing to go anywhere you wanted to take it to. It was the first step to motorized transport for the pedaling masses of Bharat, the country of the aam aadmis (thanks Congress for making that word so popular!).

I remember wondering as a kid where the fuel went into in a Luna. Motorcycles had a fuel tank, but the Luna didn't seem to have any. I remember the slender seats, almost as wide as my baby's nappy pads now. However, what intrigued me most about the vehicle was the presence of a pedal. You could pedal it away if you ever ran out of fuel! It was always an interesting sight. To see grown up men seemingly turn into toddlers. Pedaling a little puffed up cycle in the middle of the road, beat sometimes by walking menfolk.

That was also a time of joint ventures. India-Japan to be precise. Many vehicles had names in two parts. Ind-Suzuki, TVS-Suzuki, LML Vespa, Kawasaki Bajaj, and the still surviving Hero Honda. And then there were others. The Bajaj Chetaks, Supers and M80s (it looked like an illegal child of an intimate affair between a motorcycle and a scooter), Rajdoots (who can forget Dharmendra's "Rajdoot ek jaandaar savaari, ek shaandaar savaari"), Avanti Garellis, Hero Puchs, Allwyns, Lambrettas and finally skeleton-on-wheels, the Bajaj Sunny, a toy fitted with a motor.

Those were the days!

Did you?

Did you notice that I am not really sleeping, even if I desperately want to? I am listening to your feet movements; I am guessing your location from the pressure on the bed sheet; and keeping myself ready to turn like a spring and catch you before you fall down from the bed.

Did you see that while you play under the table, I keep my left palm on the table corner and try to chat with a long-lost friend with just one hand on the keyboard. So that you don't hurt yourself when you stand up unaware.

Did you realize that these days I don't take my breakfast without leaving my chair several times? Because while you play in the balcony, I keep worrying about the wide gaps in the grill, too wide for your lean innocent body.

Did you notice that these days I close the doors very very slowly, no matter how irritating it may seem. Lest you should put your finger into the hinge channel, invisible to me.

Did you notice my swollen eyes? There are unspent nights floating in them. Did you realize that when you so merrily wanted to play with your father at the middle of the night, someone desperately wanted to hit the bed after a tiring day. Did you catch me sleeping at the edge of the bed so that you can toss and turn freely the whole night?

Probably you didn't. Nobody at your age does. Why your age, nobody even fifteen times your age does.

But when you grow up one day and sleep at the edge of your bed, looking at your own kid with a glint in your moist eye, probably something would replay inside your head. Probably you would realize what I realize today. You would see what I see today; My parents playing with me at the middle of the night, tired, sleepless but smiling, loving as always!

Ek Moad...

I had shortlisted a few titles for this post. It goes like this:
- Ye Kahan Aa Gaye Hum
- Ek Moad Aaya
- Kaisi Paheli Zindegaani

Pretty atypical title for my posts. I know. But things of late have not been quite the same. Even though the title says "Ek moad...", its actually thousand "moads" (that too of the ghat types, hairpin bends you may call them, or even blind turns) that landed me where I have landed today.

So basically all this blabbering deals with me landing up in academia after almost 10 years of corporate life. Ten years of five working days in a week. Ten years of bosses, deadlines, presentations and strategies. Of performance appraisals and Italian marble offices. Ten years of revolving chairs, flickering screens, swipe cards and unused notepads and pens. Ten years of calling CEOs and VPs by their first names and (only!!) wishing to come home at 6 pm.

And today here I am, as Associate Professor in the KIIT School of Management, Bhubaneswar. A black-haired boy in the crowd of gray hairs. Or rather a haired boy in a mostly hairless world. A world of six working days, of summer vacations. A world infested with "Sirs" and devoid of first names. A world of prefixes that affixes itself to surnames (the first names gets mostly ignored) - "Prof. Kar", "Dr. Sengupta" and so on. A world where the cabin lights go out exactly at 6 pm.

Even though I haven't started taking classes, I am getting myself used to the feeling of being a "Professor". Getting used to sit through cultural programs (and in the first row, which never happened when I was a student myself), evaluating competitions, awarding winners and writing for the "faculty column". I am getting used to "surnames" and "sirs" and "madams". Getting used to having a laptop with no security and installation restrictions (ask anyone from the IT industry and they will tell you what restrictions mean). Also getting used to lots of pens and papers (the only thing I used for writing earlier was Windows notepad application)

Someone just came inside and affixed a black plastic block on my glass door that reads "Prof. Ashutosh Kar" on the outside, in golden letters. Inside, to me, it's just a black piece of plastic affixed to the glass.

May be some day it would grow transparent and I too will see myself as a "Prof".

The Song of Stench

I wake up into a lazy sunday morning, the yellow rays of a mellow sun pushing through the fluttering curtains. I can't see the sun, but the distant horizon running parallel to my window sill has turned orange. The twinkling lights of the previous night have disappered. In their place, I see a distant hill, that has drawn oscilloscopic lines in the sky.

Someone has woken up early. Through the gaps of my bathroom door, I can smell his soap. I can hear puja bells ringing and get a faint smell of incense stick burning.

Such a perfect morning to wake up to, I think. I shake off the remnants of the night and slip into my slippers. I walk up to the window and look outside.

There is an assault on my senses.

A terrible putrid stench rises from below, from outside the boundary wall of my housing society. I see an open drain, filled with bubbling filth, brewing like a forbidden wine. I see a bunch of tin houses outside, their roof held down by bricks and old tyres. The shanty has recently come up. These are the construction workers working at the several concrete mosters that are taking shape nearby. Some naked kids try to put their feet into the maze of stacked steel rods. A woman without a blouse tends to her long pitch-black hair, looking at herself in a mirror smaller than my credit card.

I am gripped by strong emotions. How do these people live in such conditions? And what business do they have to spoil my surroundings? There was a time when, as you looked outside, you saw only the greenness of untouched grass. You saw long-winged birds lifting off stunned frogs. In less than a year, things have changed. All I see now is blocks of steel and concrete at a distance and stacked tin-tyre-brick just outside.

As I turn my face away, something falls in my ear. A long forgotten song, coming straight at me from inside the tin houses. Another assault on another sense. The lovely voice of Anuradha Paudwal freezes me in my tracks. "Hui aankh num aur yeh dil musquraya, to saathi koi bhula yaad aaya..." A song from the movie Saathi (1991).



Suddenly my heart becomes lighther. It wells up and fills my throat. My head fills up with images of yore. The days of childhood. The days of gay carefree living. Of unburdened innocence. Of dancing naked in the bathroom, spashing bucketfuls of water. Of running around the house in wet feet and clinging to mother in the kitchen. Of climbing trees in the rain and hanging like monkeys from the branches. Of looking at young girls, dreaming about marrying them one day.

The assault continues. "Kya karte the saajna tum hum se door rehke..." from Lal Dupatta Malmal Ka. "Jaane jigar jaaneman mujhko hai teri kasam..." from Ashiqui. "Mere rang mein rangne wali, paree ho ya ho pareeyon ki raani..." from Maine Pyar Kiya.

I find myself glued to the window, my adult self completely taken over by the child inside me. My eyes are shining from a layer of moisture on them and there is an unknown pain in my throat.

The stench has long ceased to matter.

Another Morning...

One morning, I wake up not to the hoarse sound of concrete mixers and diesel generators, but to birds tweeting and chirping invisibly atop the trees around my house. Sitting on the verandah, I see squirrels scurry about, pausing at little fruits dropped from the trees nearby, straighten their moustache, look around and run away. Instead of burning diesel in my SUV and leaving behind a streak of black smoke and coughing people, I pick up my bicycle left leaning against the wall and pedal away into the narrow winding road below a neverending arch of dense foliage. I hear dry leaves rustle below the thin tyres. I see the cool shade of leaves perforated by inclined shafts of light and honey bees humming around bright blossoms. I pause for moment, stick my fingers into the golden oozing sap and suck a little nectar from a wild flower.

I pedal away against the wind, with nothing but the tossing blades of endless greenery surrounding me. I feel the wind on my skin, and gulp it down through my wide-open mouth. I get down and leave my cycle leaning against the slope. I run through the paddy fields, sometimes pulling at the thin blades and sometimes running my finger among them. I hear mud squelch beneath my feet and water splash on my dress.

I return home and call my friends. I just run around and call out their names. No, I don't need a Facebook or an Orkut. Nor do I need a mobile phone or highspeed 3G to be in touch. Just peep through their open front door and call them out. We run in an unannounced race to the pond, our feet kissing and unkissing the dusty road. We jump into the cold water polluted with blooming lillies; not with any white frothy chemical of some factory nearby. We dive deep into the water and surface, playing hide and seek with each other. A couple of fishes rub against my feet and a dragonfly flies past me close to the water like a tiny remote controlled drone of some unknown enemy.

As the sun mellows down and our shadows grow taller, I don't sit in front of a flickering screen of pixels and hit away furiously at rubbery buttons that splash my screen with blood and smoke. I chase cows and ducks while they return home. I throw flat stones into water and watch them jump several times. I climb a tree and have a feast twenty feet above the ground.

As night falls, I lie silently on a woven cot listening to unknown insects making an imprompu chorus or to frogs making mating calls. I catch an owl looking ferociously at me from a tree, seemingly blaming me for his sleepless nights.

Suddenly, lik a crazy animation, the whole world around me starts to shrink. The owl attaches to a fruit and the trees kiss the sky. Moon dips into water and birds sleeping in their nests fall to the ground. It keeps shrinking until it disappears into my eyelids.

And I wake up into another morning. Into the sound of concrete mixers...

The Night That Was

As the age of night grows and the whistle of the night watchman falls silent, time plays hide and seek games with you. If you are still awake, that is. I tell you, this bloody time is a slippery cunning bastard. It hovers around and irritates you when you don't need it and it slips away faster than Rakhi Sawant's dresses when you need it the most.

It's almost 3 am now and what was supposed to be finished in just an hour has taken three hours already! I hardly realized, until I looked at the ignored bottom right corner of my sea-blue windows taskbar - the final resting place for fossilized tasks, dead and long forgotten.
The balls in my eye sockets are wobbling already and the springs in my eyelids have lost their elasticity.

Around me is a riot of carcasses. Of slain mosquitos. Some with their wings and bodies intact and some with their guts mercilessly squeezed out. The floor is stained with my blood spilled out of their fragile bodies. My legs are tingling with a thousand pin pricks. I have shut the door and the window and have been killing these winged creatures for the past three hours. Still they just keep coming in. As if these rascals have been having sex all around me, procreating and sending their kids to have a sip of my late night blood. Where the hell are the appearing from?

But sometimes, just sometimes, in the most ungodly hours, God chooses something good for you. As for me, it isn't earth-shattering for sure. But I just discovered a more efficient way of killing mosquitoes. Just slap the creature in its flight as hard as you can. And see them crash to the floor, flap their wings randomly before falling motionless. No squatting, less blood, faster and greater hit ratio. Peaceful murder.

As I continue to save my hard-earned blood from the humming suckers, night slowly dissolves into day in a silent osmosis through the semipermeable membrane of my fatigued retina. And the springs are going down...down...d...o....w....n.

Signing off now! Good Night.

What they say and what they really mean

It's a slippery slope out here. Corporate world, that is. It's where the big mostly eats up the small and the shrewd eats up the naive. There is competition, alright, but not always a fair one. I hear many complain about the politics at workplace, favoritism, exploitation and mindless delegation of work. Some are quick learners. However, there are always others who just refuse to learn and make cribbing a routine.

Nevetheless, it's interesting to watch and learn from how people play the corporate game. I will throw some of the pebbles I have collected from the corporate beach. And I would love to see you add more, if any.

1. When you are in a meeting or a conference call with your boss and other people and you don't want to take responsibility of an assignment and want to delegate, you never say "Sorry, I can't do it". You cleverly pass it on to someone else by saying, "Given his experience, he is the best guy to perform this activity". Nice. Job done and your ass is saved.

2. This is an extension of the one above. Never say that you don't want to do something. Always show interest, irrespective how terribly disinterested you are. Once you come out of the meeting room, start first. If a deck needs to be prepared, be the first one to share the draft deck. Just put some goddamn slides and say, "Guys, I have put the first cut. I am sure you can make little modifications and complete this". The rest of the guys might scratch their heads for the rest of the week, but you have just earned yourself a week's worth of free time. And the good thing is you are the one who "initiated" it all.

God, I hate that word!

3. When you want to show that you are proactive in taking responsibility (especially when your boss is around), but don't really want to do the job, make an overuse of "WE". As in "We will take care of this", "Absolutely. We will ensure that it's done". Later at your convenience, you can take out the "I" from the "We" and have the rest of the morons finish the job. But I agree, doing this is easier said than done, especially you have smart guys around.

What I have seen people normally doing is talking a lot, giving all kinds of ideas (no matter how stupid they are) and asking the rest of the folks to just convert those ideas into text on paper.

4. If your boss has given you something to do and you have got it done from your juniors, don't mark them a copy when you send the task to your boss. Remove their names, remove "FWD" from the subject line and make it look like you have done it (And yes, remember to call up your juniors and tell them "I am not sure if boss is going to like it". They would be happy that their names don't figure, if they found out later that you have presented their work as yours.

5. Someone asks you for some information and you have absolutely no intention to do any work and provide the information. What do you do? You call up that guy and give him/her some great lecture on how the work must be done. Then you say that you would send him just the right info. You send out some irrelevant stuff you already had with you (a deck or a word file perhaps) and send an email marking a copy to your boss; "We discussed. As per the discussion, I am sending you the file we talked about. This should provide you all the info". You know what? Your job is done and that idiot would spend the entire day trying to figure out how to make any use of your file. But you have done your job, you are safe!

6. You are part of a team working for a common goal, say preparing a proposal document. What do you do if you want to minimize your workload? Don't tell anyone how much you have progressed. Even if you finished the task given to you in just a couple of hours, don't tell anyone yet. Release little bit of your work every day to the team and give the impression that you have been working hard everyday and making progress.

7. This is a bit similar to what's described above. To show that you are working hard, never send out a mail during office hours saying that the task in complete (unless there is a deadline, of couse). Finish the work during office hours but send it out only before you go to bed (1t 1.30 am at night, say). Man, you are working up so late!

Well, that's all I had in store inside my skull. If you have anything more, may I please request you enlighten us corporate servants?

Take care. Goodnight!

It's not their fault

"Does it have a SiRF III chip inside?" I ask.

The poor sales guy thought for a while and then said, "Sir sirf chip nahin hai...GPS bhi hai. Par kitna chip hai maloom nahin".

I didn't know what to say.

Well, those of you who are still wondering what the heck I am talking about, SiRF III is a high-sensitive chip that helps quickly lock on to GPS satellites. I was at a Croma store asking a sales guy if that GPS phone had a SiRF chip.

No Croma, contrary to what your tagline says, you don't help me buy.

I take pity on these guys who try to explain the basic features of a smart phone to me. When I ask them whether the phone has AVRCP, they say, "Woh sab nahin hai sir, par bluetooth hai is mein." AVRCP is a quite common Bluetooth profile found on most Bluetooth-enabled phones.

I think I made my point. Technology is moving so fast these days that for those of us who are tech-savvy enough, a decision to buy or not to buy something is getting increasingly difficult to make at a showroom. And the poor sales guy who is falling way behind can't help either.

It's ironical how things change. When there were no credit cards, you almost certainly knew what you were going to buy when you went out to the market. I remember when I was a kid, my father and I used to make at least two trips when we wanted to buy anything. First trip was to visit all the shops (there was no mall retailing then and one small shop didn't keep all varieties and brands) and decide what to buy. In many cases, we used to argue and counter-argue at home and a decision to buy was made only at home, not at the shop. In the second trip, we would take the exact amount in cash to buy what we finalized.

With malls and credit cards coming in, there was a complete shift in the way a buying decision was made. You go to the mall armed with a credit card, browse things, try them out there and just swipe the plastic. No going back home. No taking the exact amount of cash. Instant purchase. Instant gratification.

But now when I think of it, I think in some cases, we are back at square one. A decision to buy is no more being made at the mall. It's being made at home. There are of course no arguments between family members (because there are very few left in this world who can make sense out of the new features being constantly added to products). But yes there are arguments. On gsmarena.com. On mouthshut.com. You listen to the users, their experiences, their arguments, their feedback, review comments before making a decision. You read expert reviews, you gauge popularity from readership hits, you see the product in action on YouTube. Because at the store, you just can't test the battery life. You most probably can't test the sunlight legibility of a mobile phone. You wouldn't know about software compatibility. And boy, you wouldn't know whether there is a SiRF III chip inside!

I don't have to take the exact amount of cash. But yes, when I go out to shop for a gadget, I know what exactly I am going to buy. No salesman can ever sell me anything else.Because I know better.

How things change!

3 Idiots: Greatest Movie of All Time?

Yes, it seems, going by all the moolah the movie is raking in. But I think it's foolish to debate whether or not a movie is the greatest movie (Bollywood movie, that is) of all time. Moreover, who cares? If the definition of greatness is so vague and relative, why do you care what is the greatest movie anyway?

The idea of writing this post germinated from one of the reviews of the movie that a gentleman called Raja Sen has written on Rediff.com . More than the review, the comments (2000+ comments, mostly cursing the reviewer) made the post an interesting read. Looking at the success of the movie, Raja Sen and Rediff should feel sorry about the pathetic review they have posted. They gave the movie only 2 stars and it has gone on to become the top grossing Bollywood movie of all time. Poor Raja Sen. I am no fan of the movie (and that is precisely what I am going to elaborate on in this post), but without a speck of doubt I can say that Raja Sen has done a shoddy job of reviewing the movie.

However, when people say it's a flawless and very "realistic" movie, I cringe. When we thoroughly enjoy something, we tend to overlook the flaws it has. Had the movie been a distaster, every single scene would have some problem or the other. But because this is such a big hit, everything is fine. Some argue that "Boss, movie mein itna to chalta hai". Of course chalta hai..but it had several scenes that doesn't make any logical sense. And more importantly, these scenes could have made in a logical way without costing the movie too much.

The purpose of the post is to just list out all such scenes that didn't made sense to me. But I am ready to listen to arguments that reads like "I think that's fine...itna to chalta hai". Well, here is a list of things that is not quite chalta hai for me:

1. Flight is emergency landed, ok. Madhavan escapes so easily, fine. But Kareena getting married around the same date (5th of September that is) is too hard to digest. Coincidences are possible, but this is stretching the coincidence a bit too far. More unbelievable is Kareena marrying the same guy, after so many years, and more importantly after being made to realize by Aamir that he only knows how to count money.

2. The guy who hanged himself wasn't designing something that was weird (contrary to what the prof. commented). There is no question of that design not flying. It's a very popular design and it usually does fly without any issues (and that is precise reason why it flew in the movie).

3. In that terribly rainy night, Kareena Kapoor so easily leaves her "almost expecting" sister at home and leaves for hospital. She had a night shift probably. And she could reach office so easily while her sister couldn't. Well, may be, the rain was particularly heavy after she left. Great! But what's surprising is that if someone can call a hospital and ask for an ambulance, one can as easily take a car from campus and reach the hospital. How can everyone be so careless about a backup arrangement at such a crucial time? May be, I am asking for too much!

4. The vacuum cleaner assisted delivery looked so novel and nice. But the real vacuum cup that latches on to the baby's head is specialized material that seals properly. What Aamir Khan used in the movie would never latch on to the baby. But I agree, this is not such a big thing. Chalta hai, for entertainment sake.

5. The whole story around Aamir Khan studying in a premier engineering college on a fake identity was unpalatable and the reasons given were flimsy. If the Dad could send Aamir Khan to study in such a prestigious college on fake papers so that his son gets his degree (which is more dangerous and risky), he could quite simply got a fake degree done. Replacing the graduation photograph digitally made no sense as it's nothing but inviting trouble.

6. Chatur Ramalingam delivering the Teacher's day speech was of course quite funny and was one of the best scenes in the movie. But was Chatur a complete stupid (he isn't really as he is a topper) not to realize that there is something wrong in the speech...why should people laugh their stomachs out on a formal Teacher's day speech? Moreover the way he was describing those words (Bal****ar and St*n), it seemed like he himself knew their meaning and was enjoying the speech.

7. Chatur Ramalingam, a millionaire, comes to India on a business trip for inking a deal that could make or break his career (a little unpalatable but okay)and he doesn't really know who the guy (Mr. Wangdu) is. More incredibly, Aamir Khan becomes such a great and respected personality (a famous scientist, that is) on a fake certificate with a fake name for so many  years and no one questioned? Did everyone turn a blind eye towards him except his friends? What about his other batchmates, the professors?

There are several other, but they are about a littler higher up in the triviality scale; so I am not going into those territories (and I wouldn't dare point out that a song and dance sequence inside a college campus is unnatural; we all know jolly well that it's given in a hindi movie). Some of you might find these observations trivial or Chalta hai. Cinematic Liberties.

It was a highly entertaining movie. Alright. But I thought it could still have done well without these obvious flaws.  The spirit of the movie is unquestionable. But it seems the director got a little carried away by the stupdendous legacy of formula Hindi movies.

Music: Then and Now

I am not feeling quite well today. Woke up in the middle of the night and not able to sleep anymore. But just before I woke up, I was having a dream. Of listening to music in my old Philips two-in-one. After waking up I was feeling a bit nostalgic about the old days and because I haven't written on this blog for quite some time now, I thought why not write something on that.

The earliest days of listening to music that I still vividly remember is sitting in the open on a charpoy under a bright moonlit night with my father and sisters and listening to Binaca geet mala (or Cibaca for that matter). Ceylon was another of dad's favourite stations. Dad would lift the antenna up just right and twist the transistor radio so that the sound quality is decent enough to appreciate a Mohd. Rafi or Lata Mangeshkar. Along with dad, we all practiced twisting the radio to get a clearer reception. It was an art that we desperately wanted to learn.  How exciting it was to move the vertical red pointer below the numbers written under three rows (MW, SW1 and SW2 I think), listen to the gurgling sounds of signal noise and skipped stations, guess out a song playing somewhere in the noise of static and carefully turn the knob and twist the radio to listen to the obscure melody! Just a little bit of extra turn on the knob and the signal is gone.

When I left home to study upper primary, the luxury of listening to the Binaca or Cibaca geetmala (and to the soulful voice of Amin Sayani) was gone. Though I continued to listen to radio in the quarters of our school's physical instructor for taking news notes for the next day's prayer class, it was far from exciting. My only source of music in the confines of a residential school was the loudspeakers going off during Pujas and other sundry festivities, including marriage processions. I would run out of my dormitory and put my ear to the source of the sound wave. I would strain my ears hard to make sense out of the broken lyrics. Mind you, lyrics was important as I needed it to hum the song. But unfortunately, given my limited grasp of the Hindi language at that point in time (I had just started learning it), catching the lyrics was painfully difficult.

Interestingly, something came to our rescue. In small bookshops or at road side vendors, there used to be small pocket books of latest Hindi song lyrics. Looking back, even though I feel that these cheap lyrics books written in Oriya have done more damage to my relatively large database of Hindi song lyrics than help it, at that time these were the only means to be able to hum an entire song, including the antara. Published in haste and written by people who hardly understood Hindi or Urdu, the mistakes in the lyrics in those books ranged from innocuous to stomach-churningly funny and atrocious . Do you remember the song, 'Yun hi tum mujhse baat karte ho, ya koi pyar ka iraada hai'? In that song, one of the antaras says, '...haal-e-dil samjho sanam, kahenge muh se na hum, humari bhi koi maryada hai'. Thanks to the pocket books, I used to sing the last line as '....kahenge muh se na hum, humari bhi koi mar jaata hai'. Childhood learnings are so difficult to unlearn!

I had an obsession with being able to sing the entire song, including all the antaras. I jumped with joy when I could hum along the record player. In front of my sisters and friends, I took pride in being able to sing ahead of the record. I loved it when the record followed what I sang.

As I grew up, radio slowly started to lose its charm. Our first black and white Onida TV with gold accents on its semicircular legs took over dad's radio as the prime means of entertainment at home.Chitrahaar and Rangoli replaced Cibaca and Binaca. Moreover, we also got our first Philips two-in-one that could play and record audio cassettes and also occasionally play the radio (however, the quality of radio reception in the spanking new two-in-one was far worse than the 1960s Philips transistor radio of my dad). The ability to record audio cassettes gave rise to another obsession: listening to my own recorded voice. I would sing songs and recite dialogs from Hindi films and listen to them play on the two-in-one. I would jointly record voice with my sisters and cousins and play them later at family gatherings.

Howver, even though there was a two-in-one at home, whenever I went to a Philips shop, I salivated at the gorgeous Philips Powerhouse (the majestic stacked-box hi-fi player) and wanted to have one of those in my drawing room.

How have things changed today! The desire for a large Philips Powerhouse has given way to the small and sleek iPod with ear canal phones. With most lyrics available on the net and songs a download away in a p2p site, the charm of desperately looking for a song and locating its lyrics is gone. I don't have to run out of my house anymore to listen to a song playing on a loudspeaker. Everything is right here, inside the 32 GBs of my iPod touch. I don't record film songs in my voice anymore. These have been replaced with the more mundane voice memos, to-dos and other 'important' stuff. The joy of showing the stacked collection of cassettes to friends and renting those out to them isn't there anymore. Today, it's one click and your entire collection can be transferred to your friend's hard disk. What advantage are you left with?

However, amid all these, my obsession with being able to sing the entire song with all antaras still continues, though with much less fervor. Though there aren't too many opportunities these days for an Antakshari, I remember my college days and the early employment days, when coming second in an Antakshari competition wasn't a possibility.

Ah, those days!

How on Earth? How?

The more I think about it, the more intriguing it becomes. How on earth can a company get everything - just about everything - right, in the mind-bogglingly complex world of consumer electronics, with established deep-pocketed players, a demanding and hence extremely fickle consumer mindset and booming technology that renders every novel thing "so yesterday" in a few months (or even few weeks) time?

I am talking about Apple. The half-eaten fruit that has fully eaten up many players, digested them and thrown them out of its arse.

I am so overwhelmed while writing this that I don't know where to start. But because I have to start somewhere, let me begin with some quite shockingly iconoclastic traits that the Apple devices possess:

• When everyone is asking for more features to be packed into the tiniest of packages, how can an iPod have just one clickwheel, no in-line recording and no FM radio?
• When it's all about showing off your personality and hence the colour of your device, how can you have a music player with just one colour (the colourful iPods came much later, it was just plain white for a very long time)
• Apple has legendary marketing and branding skills. We all know that. But then, how can you create probably the only portable device in the entire history of portable devices that doesn't have your name and logo on the front of the device (and lose the opportunity to have it appearing in photographs across the print media when a new device is launched)
• When variety is the flavour of the season, how can you have just one kind of iPod for a long time? Even today, there is only one iPhone. One look, one set of features. (if we ignore relatively minor things such as OS upgrades, internal memory etc., that is). Look at Nokia. Look at just their N series. How many varieties? How can just one phone model give all other high-end phones a run for their money?
• Today standardization and flexibility is the name of the game. Give us standard micro USB chargers and USB interface. Give us standard bluetooth control. Standard memory cards. Standard video support (e.g. DivX support). In such times, how can you create a device that doesn't support any standard video formats, doesn't allow you to put a memory card of your own, doesn't support standard bluetooth control features, doesn't allow you to replace battery or memory and doesn't have a standard USB interface? How?

I have probably said enough. Apple is by far one of the greatest iconoclasts of our times that has repeatedly proved several trade pundits (who tried to predict consumer preferences and market trends) wrong, left, right, top and bottom. I can't help but marvel at the ability of Steve Jobs to make decisions that in retrospect could have looked like an organized suicide.

Now-a-days, every time a new top-end phone is launched, News headlines go ballistic crying "iPhone killer" all over. Let alone killing, these phones are not even within close distance of iPhone, a phenomenon that it is. While most of these much-publicised devices have failed to latch on to consumer sentiments, iPhone has only grown. And grown fast selling millions each year. There are phones out there with all kind of features that are in vogue today. In contrast, iPhone releases just one feature at a time and still consumers suck up to it. And every time it releases a new feature, it makes a lot of money charging for additional features. Like the recent OS 3.o upgrade for iPod touch owners.

How can you get ideas seemingly from nowhere on how to wade through this horrifyingly complex business and get it right every time?

Thinking simple. That's all I can make out with my humble brain. Quite surprisingly, Apple works for all the reasons that one would predict it would fail for.

Here is why apple works:

• Simplicity in features (or rather lack of features) with a very high focus on design, usability along with a big price tag makes apple devices exclusive and help them clearly stand apart in a race of features (No more "Does your player have recording facility? Mine has") People who own iPods just have iPods. Not a set of features cobbled together in a device.
• Limited variety (just one iPhone, just one kind of iPod..well for the most part) generates more media focus, instead of being dissipated across multiple model launches. It also helped create an astonishingly large array of iPod/iPhone compatible accessories (such as docking stations, arm bands, cases etc.) creating a further consumer pull. Others, because of their varied models, lost out on accessories.
• On the software front, developers are going crazy over Apple software because both iPod touch and iPhone have the same softwares in them and are of the same exact size. This creates a large ecosystem of users who they can target. Multiple sizes / softwares wouldn't have worked this great
• Avoiding working with multiple partners: Sure Apple doesn't provide GSM services. But look at it...it has its own music store, own music transfer software iTunes, own hardware and own OS on that hardware and its own Application Store (talking about flexibility, you can't put a software on your iPhone unless you hack it and void the warranty). It therefore has an incredible control on the quality and features that it delivers to its customers. All that an iPod ever needs by way of service is a reset. Nothing goes wrong in that device or its software. My other mp3 player died in an year. I have vowed not to touch anything but iPods, at least for the foreseeable future.
• Inflexibility for greater profit and feature/quality control: You allow people to replace batteries and they would put cheap Chinese ones. Allow them to put memory cards and they would put corrupt or virus inflicted ones. Limiting experimentation on the device make sound sense for greater control on device design (how can you expect a shiny polished flawless steel back-cover if you wanted a replaceable battery?) and build quality. It also helps prolong the life of the device and earn extra bucks for Apple through supply of original Apple spares / accessories.

There is only one rule to reach the top. Break all the rules. You will either sink or you would lead. You won't drift at least. If you just drift, you can never lead. Large companies (I could mean the Sony's, Samsung's and LG's) may not be breaking too many rules today, but they must have on their way to become what they are today.

Illogical Involuntaries

I tore open the packet hoping nothing except what I thought it would contain. And then as I was about to throw the envelope into the trash can, a neatly folded paper floated out, settling quickly onto the floor. I picked it up and there it was! A letter. A Letter in the truest sense. An old-world letter. The kind that is written with fingers joined. When an impatient pen touches a waiting paper. Not the kind that is punched onto raised plastic buttons throwing some random sequence of 0's and 1's into a heated mess of silicon junk. With fingers separate.

A Rakhi. With a letter. From a sister I speak to on phone every week.

I initially thought it was stupid. Or completely silly. Or may be just a thought. A false thought. Illusion. How can my eyes be moist? I speak to her so often. Now-a-days, we are meeting a bit more frequently too. What difference can a letter really make when I spend megabytes of airwaves talking to her?

And then a drop lands on the unfolded sheet. Oh no! I can't cry like this. It's so embarassing. And for what reason? A letter?

Yeah, a letter. I realize.

Rakhi is the only occasion when sometimes, just sometimes, I receive letters. From my two sisters to be precise.

A little bit of enquiry. How my brother is doing in an alien land. Is he taking care of his health. Is he eating properly. Is he sleeping well and trying to work a bit less.
A little bit of lamentation. We aren't fortunate enough a tie a Rakhi on his wrists. We are'nt lucky enough to share a sweet broken by our teeth.
A little bit of wish. Let the Gods shower flower on the road he takes. May he be the happiest person on the earth. May he have no obstacles ever on his way.

These are the letters I have grown up with. Since my childhood, I have compared my notes with my elder sister. I have corrected the notes of my younger sister. The letters have a face. They have an old identity in them. There is a smell in them. The way the "Bha" of "Bhai" curls or way the sentences droop. The way typos are corrected or the way words are chosen. It's our childhood that the paper carries with it. Unlike an email, it carries with it bits of my sister. The motion of her hands that is so familiar to me. The memories of those days.

How can it be compared to an email? Or an SMS?

How have things changed! In the times of instant gratification, the charm of waiting is gone. But if you think, waiting is not such a bad thing after all. I remember the days when I used to write letters to someone who I was trying to establish a romantic relationship with (albeit unsuccessfully). You write a letter and wait for a reply. You wait for days, sometimes weeks. But somewhere in the corner of your heart you believe that a reply would come. In the pile that the postman dumps in the common room, one day you would have your name written. It set offs possibilities, expectations, fears and excitements. The process of waiting is not waiting really. There is no waiting for something. It is the thing.

I look around my cubicle. No. No one is looking at me. I wipe my eyes by the sleeves of my shirt with a flick of my shoulder. It's so illogical, I am tempted to think. But I could do nothing to stop my tears, even though I kept on telling myself that this isn't happening.

We are today a crowd that swears by words such as voluntary, logical, methodical, certainty.

But sometimes involuntary things do happen to us that we might want to call illogical. But sometimes they are as logical as anything in the world can be. Just that we fail to make a distinction. Between what is logical and what isn't.

Have You Arrived?

How do you really define "Success"?

What do people mean when they say someone is successful? Do they mean that the person they call "Successful" has reached a certain threshold that they aspire to reach themselves? Or there is an absolute minimum to be reached? Is there a threshold of achivement beyond which one could be called 'Successful'? Who decides that threshold? Why can't I call myself successful?

Let's take an example. Is a man who is just declared "Successful" by newspaper headlines today not one yesterday? Why not? What did he to today to become sucessful? Assuming that he is capabable of achieving more and there are already people who have achieved much more than him, why are we calling him successful today? Would a film star be called successful if he gives just one hit? If not then how many hits? If yes, then why? He could give five flops tomorrow and his career might be finished. Are we being premature?

A young man, who leaves his village for a decent paying job in a city like Mumbai might be called successful back home. His folks back in his village might look at the way he dresses, the way he talks and the way he spends money, and marvel at it. "Look at him", they might say, "he has become a big man". But this guy would be a nobody in Mumbai. A nondescript face in a vast sea of humanity.

The example above probably was an extreme case, but the point is if success is so relative, how can I find my place in the hierarchy of life's achievements? Is it a constant attempt to define and redefine yourself? Your priorities, your happiness, your contentment? If I am happy with myself, am I successful? Or, let's say if I think I am successful, but I am not happy at all, am I really "Successful"?

When I think I could one day lead a happy life doing what I love to do, I am always assaulted by the fact that I can meet someone one day who would tell me that I am happy with myself because I have stopped trying to reach greater heights. He would say people who want to reach heights of success are in a perpetual state of unhappiness. And this unhappiness drives them further.

But this confuses me further.

Given that each of us lives a different life under different circumstances and contributes differently to the society we live in, is it possible that we have as many definitions of success (if not more) as there are people?

When I look at myself and try to find my own definition of success, I am assaulted by conflicting theories that I myself put forward and many cases people around me throw at me.

Am I successful? Am I not? Do I want to become one? Do I not?

What?