Author: manuscrypts

  • Coincide

    A friend of mine, Soubhagya, is an avid photographer, who, despite my best efforts, still shies away from running his own photoblog. So when he asked me to take part in a writing experiment, I thought it would be a relatively painless way of introducing him to blogging, and hopefully, he’ll like it enough to do it on his own. The idea’s pretty simple – he’s given me a couple of pictures he has shot recently, and wants me to write a few words on each. Here goes

    the face of money‘The face of money’ is what Soubhagya calls it.

    What’s my value? To a politician, I’m a vote that will help him in his quest for power. To my employer, I am a worker who gets paid for the job I do. To the places I eat out in, to the shops I buy things from, I am a source of revenue. To the people who care for me as an individual, these are perhaps not the parameters of calculating their value for me. It’s a different currency. So the question is complete only if I ask “What’s my value to …. ?”  Now, what if I were to pose the question to myself? Do I measure myself by my financial status, or the lack of it? Is it the ‘Likes’ on Facebook or the followers on Twitter? Or is it by the number of lives I have touched, in one way or another? Is it a combination? Is it what I deem as my potential? How much is that dependent on externalities? And doesn’t that change with time? Which brings me to..

    Burnt out ‘Burnt Out’

    Purpose. I have always been interested in the purpose of our lives. All life forms in general, and of course, specifically us, humans. Generally, at different stages in life, we get stuck with different routines, sometimes by choice, sometimes not – school, college, work and so on. There is a short term purpose to it all, so we rarely look for something beyond. By my definition, ‘purpose’ gives a meaning to what we do, something beyond the money that it brings in, something that really makes us happy just by doing it, as though we are destined to do it. One could rationalise and say that the money then becomes a tool to ‘buy’ the things that give happiness, but that’s arguable.. We prioritise according to our baggage, some are okay with trading an amazing weekend and regular holidays for mind numbing work, some wouldn’t be able to manage it at all, and there are tons of options in between. The candle reminds me of the passion that we bring into what we do, and I believe that depends on our approach to ‘purpose’. Burn brightly or be a shallow flame? In both cases, there is a finite lifetime in which it has to be done. For me, even the task of finding a purpose is a tough one. Whichever way one sees it, there is always the possibility of a burnout. Such is life. So burn you must, and light up the place as much as you can. 🙂

    until next time, wax eloquent 😉

    PS: Now split ‘coin-cide’ and you might figure out a new possibility

  • 1984

    George Orwell

    Winston Smith thinks it is 1984, but it could be 2050, for all you know, for all you know is controlled by Big Brother. For as the book constantly reminds us “He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.” An amazing dystopian novel that explores how an oligarchical society can completely control the minds and actions of large masses of humanity over a seemingly endless period of time.

    Winston Smith, the protagonist, is a bureaucrat working in the ‘Ministry of Truth’ in London, chief city of Airstrip One, a province of Oceania. Winston’s bob in the Records Department is to revise historical records to match the Party’s current stance on people, events etc. As he edits the past to match the present, he also maintains a secret diary in which he records his dissent against the party and its policies. This, according to the party is ThoughtCrime, and if he’s caught by the Thought Police, he would be executed. As he himself notes, ‘ThoughtCrime IS death.’. In a world where telescreens watch every movement and children are trained to spy on everyone, including their parents, to detect ThoughtCrime, Winston lives dangerously.

    Winston’s life changes when he falls in love with Julia, they carry on a clandestine love affair (that’s a crime too) in their love nest in a ‘prole’ (proletarian) neighbourhood, where they believe telescreens are not watching them. They then come into contact with an inner party official, who they believe belongs to The Brotherhood, which works against Big Brother.

    The novel is dystopian, and there’s no happy ending. It works on at least two levels levels – the obvious dangers of totalitarian societies, and the working of the human mind and its perception of reality.

    An amazing book, and well deserving of its classic status.

  • Facet

    Facebook’s policy changes a while back meant that suddenly,  the average user (as opposed to the technophile and conspiracy theorist) is raising an eyebrow, or both, depending on knowledge levels, at what it means to his privacy. This is not an indication of whether someone is below or above average, let’s not go there. Meanwhile, K and I have been discussing David Bond (Erasing David), which has to do with online privacy (though not in a Facebook context)  – how one man challenges experts from a security firm to track him down using information they can gain about him from the public domain, while he tries to outrun them.

    K noted that in the olden days, this notion of privacy didn’t exist, as everything was known to everybody. I agreed that in the new age, our connections are more, we include a lot more people in our lives, even indirectly, by just sharing our data online. Our work, lifestyle and advances in technology mean that we communicate more, meet more people, and yes, ‘friend’ them.

    It does good too, no taking away from that. Ironically, K and I know each other from work, from quite a few years back. We never interacted much then, and I was more pally with others in her team. I still remember, a couple of years back, when I met K and another colleague of hers in a shop, I chatted away with him, and rewarded K with a lousy smile. 😀  But these days, we have amazing conversations online, and I’m hardly in touch with her colleagues. Thank you Facebook 🙂

    As perhaps the first generation of Facebook users, we are in an interesting place (and time). I read “Chasing the Monk’s shadow” recently, a book in which the author retraces Xuanzang’s journey (we knew him as Hieun Tsang in our history text books) and it made me appreciate the value of the written word – especially when it resurfaces in a  different era.   It was in this context that I considered what really appears in our profiles on Facebook.

    (Generalising) We friend erm friends, but we also friend parents, siblings, relatives, acquaintances, and even random animals. We display our likes, dislikes, interests, information, and through our conversations, we add layers to this. But its amazing how, sometimes, when I ‘like’ something that someone has posted, and glance at the others who have liked it, I realise that I don’t know them. We’re connected by one common friend.

    The common friend, who I might know from college, and the other person might know from work. How much of mining would it require to unearth the nuances in the relationships between ‘friends’? Would it be possible to mine the fact that while I might make a smart alec comment on a person’s status, I might never have met him/her in real life? Would it be possible to mine the different persons we are, to different people, in different contexts. The worries, the fears, the quirks, whims and yes, likes, that we never express, the things that probably make us human – they exist in our minds. We only share a part of ourselves online. We are still strangers, sometimes even to ourselves.

    So yes, while all sorts of data from browsing history to buying habits are out there, maybe, in this hugely connected world, without the ‘real metadata’, in a way we are still disconnected from most of our ‘friends’… and the information gatherers? Since its slightly difficult to be like Schmidt (Google CEO), who infamously said “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place”,  I believe that we should be responsible about what we share (even if that’s in the form of a ‘Like’) online.

    So all I’m saying is, you can press that little ‘Like’ button below, and nothing catastrophic is going to happen… yet 🙂

    until next time, face off

  • Kobe Sizzlers – Koramangala

    And just as the summer ended its job for the year in Bangalore, and the monsoons set in, Koramangala found another way to sizzle. Kobe Sizzlers, which already has an outlet in Garuda Mall, has now opened shop in Koramangala. Its the building almost immediately after Java City. (map) Parking isn’t much of a problem. Maybe it was the weather, or the newness, or the brand name, but guessing from the crowd yesterday, you should either land early (like we did, at 7.30 pm) or reserve in advance. The other good part about being early was that we got the road facing seating option.

    Very comfortable seating and a pleasant ambiance. You can take a look at the entire menu here. Unlike my previous Kobe visit, I was well prepared this time (no heavy lunch). We also remembered we had brought the camera. We thought we’d start with a Scotch Broth, but were told it was mutton based, so settled for a Chicken Corn soup.

    CIMG1210

    It isn’t as brown as it looks in the image, but after I added the pepper and the tomato chilly sauce, this color would’ve been justified. By itself, the corn flavour is dominant, hence the additions. A decent start.

    Though the number of sizzler options is high enough, the uniqueness quotient is lesser than our favourite sizzler joint in town – Tangerine, or even Yoko. But hey, so long as they serve it well. The vegetarians might have more options here, though. So D ordered a ‘Sizzling Chicken with pepper sauce’ and I opted for a Mixed Grill. D’s dish looked ‘prettier’, I thought.

    CIMG1214

    I also thought the mixed grill scored on functionality though, helped by the fried egg.

    CIMG1217

    The Mixed Grill has, in addition to the vegetable space wasters, lamb pieces, kidney, liver, mutton chop, sausages, and my tee served as excellent subtext, said D. 😐

    CIMG1218

    The chicken dish was done well, and the pepper sauce complemented it well. The Mixed Grill required some help from the Worcestershire sauce, and I felt the original sauce’ consistency (in terms of the flavour) could’ve been better. It came out strongly in some places (and that was good) and barely made an impact in other places. Kidney, liver, its difficult to go wrong with those 😀  The meat was tender in the case of mutton chops as well as lamb pieces, which was a relief – I hate fighting for it. The French Fries (in both) deserve a special mention, very good stuff.

    Dessert options are the usual suspects, though they range from kulfis to apple pie. 🙂

    The service is quite prompt. All of the above cost us about Rs.850. So, I’d say, its definitely worth a visit, especially if you’re in Koramangala, where there are hardly any sizzler options.

    Kobe Sizzlers, 1st Cross, 5th Block, Koramangala, Ph: 41705608

  • Lost Shopping Destination

    L. I have loved Bollywood for a long long time. Though I’m more a fan of the ‘unBollywood ‘ movies (best represented by our poster child Abhay Deol)  these days, the first love retains its charm. I have written about this before, and am especially happy when I find others who share this interest – Mo, Meeta, TCP, and even Cyn, though elitist that she is, she  will never admit to watching the snake video multiple times.

    S. The interest, in my case, also extends to the fringe players in that field – remember Ramsay brothers, and that cool show called Toofan TV on Channel V, which was based on all the howlarious stuff that got made – desi Bond movies, snake movies, and yes, most importantly the sleaze genre, carefully camouflaged in horror/jungle  themes, and the resources for which were awfully scarce then. An era before computers, personal or otherwise.

    So, here I was, at our regular DVD shopping place – Temptation, on Church Street, and what do I see?

    10042010168 10042010167

    Golden oldies! Now the name made sense. Yeah, I know its all over the net now, and access is easy, but real shelf space!  And hey, mine is a generation before remote controls happened, you have no clue how difficult things were. S3x was a 3 letter word, and 4 letter words were only beginning to be formed, and we had to look away or were asked to go to another room, when some stuff did appear on screen! So you see, its easy to get emotional about such things!

    D. Refused to let me buy them. 😐 As a consolation, I got the Love,S3x,Dhoka DVD (priced at Rs. 69, kid you not) 😀  . 2 months later,  armed with a more fierce resolve, I arrived, and noticed that Temptation had given way to a computer games store.

    until next time, prnic healing 🙂

    PS. Other Temptations flourish on Church Street.