Month: February 2013

  • Only Time Will Tell (Clifton Chronicles 1)

    Jeffrey Archer

    The first of the Clifton Chronicles and launched in Bangalore earlier this year. 🙂 As per wiki, Lord Archer plans to span the series from 1920 to 2020. This first installment covers the years from 1919 ( a year before Harry’s birth) to 1940. The protagonist is Harry Clifton, ostensibly, the son of a war hero, but later years would reveal his true father.

    Harry is gifted with a fine voice, and despite financial troubles, manages to learn his way to Oxford. The other principal characters are Maisie Clifton, his mother, Giles Barrington, his best friend, Giles’ father Hugo and his sister Emma Barrington, and Old Jack Tar, a war veteran fighting his own demons, but who discovers Harry’s potential and moulds his life.

    The author manages to pace the book very well, and has thankfully stayed away from the drastic twists that he was once good with. Instead he has chosen subtle turns which the reader is able to easily guess beforehand, but finds presented very well.

    Archer’s storytelling skills are obviously intact, though one portion reminded me of the climax of ‘As the Crow Flies’, and the art appreciation seems to be taken from his own knowledge of the field. The way he switches the narrative by introducing it from the perspectives of the principal characters works out splendidly.

    I am becoming a fan of the subtle Archer style of humour too, and therefore I don’t miss the earlier twisty plot style much.

  • Thatva

    Thatva’s objective is to create a systematic process and a structured framework that would help innovators grow their ideas into innovations. In conversation with co-founder Sridhar DP

    [scribd id=124527521 key=key-1kq3e9qdc8xv0ihljp6a mode=scroll]

  • A change of course

    There was an intriguing article on HBR last month, titled “Can Companies Both Do Well and Do Good?” It was based on a research that looked at the correlation  between the financial performance of firms and their social & environmental performance. At the corners of a grid made of both kinds of performances on X and Y axes respectively, are Idealists (great on socio-environmental, but low on financial performance) Trendsetters, Exploiters and Laggards, in the clockwise direction. As should be expected, there are companies all over the chart, and the correlation is near zero! There were outliers, of course, but not really a pattern.

    It made me think whether it was possible for the corporations we see around to do good and well. I am not talking of CSR or ad hoc sustainability projects that would temporarily bring them to a Trendsetter level, but a radical shift that would stand the test of time. We are seeing a paradigm change in the way business is done, but this era is only the beginning of that transformation. In general, the entities we see around are hard wired to maximise profit and not really to spare a thought on the social/environmental or I daresay human fallout of their activities. These are large corporations with individual personnel, processes, shareholders who are used to a certain perspective. These are systems with a single point agenda. Is it really possible to shift them without a huge investment of all kinds of resources – time, energy, money – with no guarantee that this would really benefit the firm in the long run?

    So does this mean that in the medium-long term, these corporations are destined to fail as our understanding of achieving a balance between profit and being ‘good’ matures, and only those which have started/start now with a DNA that is meant to achieve this balance will do well? Or is it that as the individual and societal mindset gradually change, and as social business evolves, corporations will also be able to use that time to slowly transform themselves? I do wonder. What do you think?

    until next time, become the change you want to see

  • Of fame and purpose

    I completely missed Bigg Boss 6. Except for knowing that the arrested-for-sedition cartoonist and Sapna Bhavnani were participants, my exposure to it was limited to lunch conversations at office, where two of my friends seemed to be avid followers. 🙂 I thought my ignorance was only fair, since they are usually clueless when I mention the names of micro-celebrities on Twitter.

    Increasingly, I am realising that popular culture is going through massive fragmentation. The above was an example. I think this generation is connected with more people than any before it. It has always been so, with better means of communication, but this time, it has been an explosion. We’re still coping with the overload, or filter-failure, as Clay Shirky calls it. Despite social networks, or probably because of them and their algorithms, we miss out on many things.

    I was thinking of all this in the context of fame. Fame, to me, has some connection with my favourite subject these days – purpose. Fame can serve as a means, or end, or a by product of purpose. The thing is, with the fragmentation I mentioned earlier, fame probably has to be redefined, also because its shelf life has been drastically reduced. Once upon a time, a name/photo appearing in a newspaper was an achievement. (let’s ignore the notoriety piece 🙂 ) Later, before channels mushroomed, it was television. But now….

    One of the things that might happen because of all this is the gradual de-linking of fame and purpose, if it does exist. I’m still trying to figure out how that will shift our perspectives on purpose.

    until next time, being famous ain’t what it used to be…

  • Terrazzo

    There’ve been so many name and location changes in the last year that I can’t be sure which Italy has been replaced by Terrazzo – Italia or Little Italy. I think it’s the former. In any case, this is on 100 feet Road just before the 12th Main junction when you’re coming from the Koramangala direction. (on your right – so take a right before 12th main, loop around to 12th Main and then turn left on 100 feet Road) There’s valet parking for the bigger machines and just enough space for the smaller ones. The map can be found at Zomato, and the menu as well. There’s another restaurant Esplanade housed in the same building, and is related to the one in Koramangala.

    One thing they should probably change is piling the garbage right in front of the restaurant! Why would anyone want to see this when they walk into the restaurant? And the stink stays with you for quite a while. :\

    There are three seating options – 2 downstairs (one closed, one semi open with a glass ceiling) and 1 upstairs. We sat upstairs and had a nice view of the road. The menu is a mix of (wait for it) Italian and Indian, so we decided to do the same with our order too! From the bar menu, we asked for a Tequila Steeler and a Classic Sangria, and for starters, a Lal Surkh Tangdi Kabab. We could have done with lesser chopped fruits in the Sangria but the Steeler was not a bad drink. The Kabab didn’t have much of the mince it was supposed to have, and the chilli paste was not really present in all the 3 pieces we got, but it was not a bad dish really.

    For the main course, we decided to try the Sicilian al Pollo with a thin crust (that you have to ask for) and a Carbonara with Fusilli. The pizza turned out to be quite good with lots of cheese, mushrooms and chicken and a slight tang and spiciness thanks to the sauce. We’d have liked the pasta sauce to be a little less dry but there was no questioning the fresh cream, cheese and bacon presence.

        

    We were quite stuffed but the person who took the order insisted on a complimentary dessert when he learned that we had booked through Poshvine. (and that the booking for some reason had not gone through!) That happened to be a caramel custard with some amazing custard and a caramel sauce that could have been a bit less bitter.

    All of the above came to just under Rs.1850 (that’s after a Citi discount and taxes and service charge) The service was really really good and that’s not just because he bribed me with the dessert. 🙂 The food is reasonably good too and the ambiance is quite nice. All things considered, you could probably drop in if you’re around those parts.

    Terrazzo, No:1135, 100 feet Road, HAL 2nd Stage, Indiranagar Ph: 25289126/97482