Year: 2009

  • My corner in space.. and time…

    …and it was another Sunday when i lazed around, watched some TV, saw a movie on DVD, blogged, micro blogged, and read. In this case, i finished reading ‘Space’ by James Michener. In case you aren’t familiar with his works, he writes huge sagas, and in this case, he uses human characters and their lives to bring out a tangibility to what was in my mind an abstract – Space. (used in the context of the cosmos)

    I really didn’t do anything world changing, and as most weekends go, this could be classified as a wasted weekend. Of course Calvin would object. To use one of my fave quotes “Weekends don’t count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless” or that wonderful “A weekend wasted is not a wasted weekend”. Anyway, it led me extrapolate that to the life being lived, especially because these days, i’m coming across a lot of literature built around setting goals, giving a meaning to life, and so on.

    I think we all fight our battles with the universe, and most usually end up choosing comfortable corners from where we proceed to watch the stories unfold. The size of the corners is one of the things that vary with each of us, another is the extent of our activity in these corners. The rest of the world is a blur. Take the things that you are interested in, put them in this corner, and you should get the blurriness of the world I’m talking about. What makes these corners sometimes uncomfortable is our comparison with others’ corners and our perceptions of its comfort. Also our comfort needs vary over time.

    In our corners, what we do is of consequence to a limited number of people. This number is perhaps, the measure by which we end up conferring tokens of greatness on people. A few words in ‘Space’ caught my attention

    ..you and I live on a minor planet attached to a minor star, at the far edge of a minor galaxy. We live here briefly, and when we’re gone, we’re forgotten. And one day the galaxies will be gone too. The only morality that makes sense is to do something useful with the brief time we’re allotted.

    And that sums up the paradox quite well. What I do is meaningful in the finite time I live in, and is futile in the infinity that I exist in. And as i try to make sense of that paradox, I am also reminded of Floyd’s ‘Time‘. I’d admit that I am frittering my life away, if only I knew what the starting gun was for.

    until next time, keep running… 😐

  • Heal the world.. in 140 characters

    This week, Twitter has a rendezvous with reality. While examples of Twitter based real aid abound – Twitter has helped build a well, provided help to an abused woman and her child,  there’s a cool Social Action and TwitterFeed mashup, this is the first (that i have come across) organised global attempt to use the Twitter network to make a tangible difference. Twestival, if you haven’t heard already. February 12th 2009, in your city. Well, at least one near you.

    On 12 February 2009 175+ cities around the world will be hosting Twestivals which bring together Twitter communities for an evening of fun and to raise money and awareness for charity: water.

    You can take part by attending the twestival, uploading or buying music at twestival.fm, taking part in the tee design competition or donating. The Twestival site gives you all the details, including the person in your city organising it. Here’s Bangalore, for example. Mashable has a good post on the New York version. Twestival is gathering steam as you read – LiveEarth is now the global broadcast and video partner.

    While this is a great attempt to make a tangible difference at a local level, I’m sure that with entities like Twitpay and TipJoy, we’ll find ways to overcome geographical constraints and connect our social currency with real currency. Meanwhile, on a tangential note, there’s something I came across on Twitter – twipple (i heard that naughty thought :p ) (the plan of action via adrants)

    a microblogging cross between Simon Says and Pay it Forward. Once a critical mass starts following @twipple, the latter will deploy “short, fun, positive tweet instructions to do something kind in public,” like smile at a stranger, give money to a street musician, or whistle your favourite tune.

    While I do write about brands and the business conundrums of social media, I firmly believe that the true power of this phenomenon is in the human network we are creating. People, who I trust will not just use the medium for self serving purposes, but also to leave our world a better place.

    until next time, 140 characters can make a difference

  • The French Quarter bistro

    Flanked by music (Planet M) and coffee (Barista), The French Quarter bistro is located on the 100 ft Road in Indiranagar. When coming from the Koramangala side, this is immediately after the CMH Road-100 ft Road junction on the left.

    We called to reserve in advance, done smoothly, with a casual “see you in the evening, manu” thrown it at the end. There went the stereotype of French snobbery I had in mind.

    The flyover construction has left the area in a bit of a mess, but parking for two wheelers, thankfully, is not a problem. Though we didn’t find a maitre’d like the one in Spiderman 3, we were allowed to choose a table that we found comfortable. Nice. The ambience is very relaxing, high ceilings with a couple of palm trees, soft music, and bistro style comfortable seating. One is bound to linger here for longer than the food warrants. And while we waited for the food, they served bread and butter, and replenished it a few times too.

    We started with a French Onion soup , which is “beef consomme with cheese croutons”. Its a thin soup and a milder flavour than I’d anticipated, but still good enough. For the main course, in addition to the items on the menu, there’s also the Plat du jour, that you can find on the blackboard. Though all reviews stated that it was a salad + entree combination, there wasn’t a salad to be found. I’m still curious.

    So, D ordered a “Pan seared red snapper in lemon butter sauce served with herb rice” (regular menu) and I ordered a “Chicken a’la King, with herb rice”. We experimented a bit with Tabasco sauce and thankfully it turned out fine. They serve moderate portions and despite appearances, they’re quite filling. I was hoping to have some chocolate crepes, but unfortunately they didn’t have it, and strangely, I wasn’t tempted by the chocolate mousse cake. I confess I’m a bit worried about that.

    Before the billing, they ask you if they can include Rs.10 – to be given to Akshaya Patra (a cause for underprivileged children), a very good initiative. All of the above (no mineral water) cost us just over Rs.800, including a service charge of 10%. Extremely pleasant service, great setting and decent food. Definitely worth a visit.

    The French Quarter bistro, 298, 100 ft Road, Indiranagar. Ph: 080 42171998

    Menu at Zomato

  • An idea called Home

    …and sometimes you turn back to look at your past, it looks right back at you, there’s a smile of understanding, and you decide to move on…

    As i looked around the room, i could see the images flash – hunting for the missing single white uniform sock which was mocking me from somewhere on the stand,  climbing up on multiple stools to nail that Ash poster on to the wall, numbering new cassettes and arranging them on the cupboard shelf,  skeptically viewing the computer when it was brought in, and then spending hours browsing, adjusting the angle of lying down on the bed to watch TV in the other room while pretending to be studying, gazing fondly at those hard earned trophies and remembering the exploits that earned them….an almost endless stream…

    There has been at least one occupant since then, but ‘I’ can still be found there, after all i spent close to a decade there… memories buried amongst books, clothes, and all those assorted things that are part of the everyday existence… forgotten heroes… part of a story that once used to be called home…

    As i left the room, there was an uneasiness that gnawed at me… it happened during every goodbye, but somehow this time I felt it was different.. and a few hours later, as i opened the door of our current place of residence in Bangalore, and gazed around in affection at the familiar settings, I sensed an understanding of the uneasiness, and remembered the words from ‘Garden State’ that I tend to quote often

    You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn’t really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone
    … You’ll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it’s just gone. And you can never get it back. It’s like you get homesick for a place that doesn’t exist. I mean it’s like this rite of passage, you know.
    … I miss the idea of it. Maybe that’s all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.

    ….for even as you smile in understanding, there’s the pain of moving on, of losing touching with the ‘you’ who once were, of acknowledging the paradox of Time – which caused you to change, and the room to remain relatively unchanged..almost frozen in time….perhaps a keeper of memories that you couldn’t find space for…

    until next time, a room with a point of view

  • Space

    James A Michener

    ..the final frontier. To me, space has been an abstract, with a few perspectives molded by the science fiction I read. with this work, albeit a novel, James Michener gave me a lot of tangible snippets of how humans working in this wonderful scientific field have evolved over time.
    From the time of the Second World War, when creating rockets that would destroy opposing forces and cities was the priority to a nation’s obsession to place a man on the moon, during the Cold War, to NASA and later scientists who grapple with manned and unmanned explorations and the possibility of life outside earth, this book, as with all of Michener’s works, is one vast canvas.
    And mirroring, and perhaps concluding a debate in the book, (man as a measure of success..and interest) Michener uses the lives of the politicians, astronauts and the scientists working on the missions to show the universal nature of man’s self doubts, his trials, tribulations, joys, sorrows, successes and failures. Personal battles – with self and others, mingle with professional clashes to make the story..human. A few real life figures like Sagan and Asimov get a mention in this work of fiction.There are some wonderful hat tips to some excellent works in sci fi.
    In tackling Space, Michener also draws attention to other profound things – evolution, religion, culture and gives some amazing perspectives on questions that each of us carry within us. A wonderful read, that re-created the awe and splendour that the cosmos invokes, and reminded me of the fundamental paradox of human existence – the preciousness in finite time and the meaninglessness, in the infinite.