• Kodagu Moments – Day 1

    A variety of factors led us to look nearby for the first of this (financial) year’s vacations – a relatively unambitious trip to Coorg. But it was our first trip to the area, so we decided to make it special by resorting to luxuries that we otherwise stay away from during our travels. The trip began on a Friday morning, and our Celcabs driver was only about 15 minutes late. At 7.30 we got out of Koramangala on to tolled NICE and un-tolled other roads, and parts of Bangalore that we’d seen only on Google Maps.

    Though we’d have liked to try out breakfast at Maddur Tiffany’s, hunger and a persuasive driver led us to Kamat Lokaruchi, just after Ramanagara, at about 9.15 AM. We decided that the ‘buffet’ option would be the least taxing mentally. At Rs.120 per head, it wasn’t the stuff legends are made of, but pretty filling and reasonably tasty – pongal, dosas, (masala and standard) Kotte Kadubu, vada, jalebi, kesari bath and so on! The pit stop was short and we then passed more Kamat outlets, a few CCD, McDonald ones, and even a KFC and Empire, all much more spacious and luxurious than the ones in Bangalore.

    On to Channapatna, Maddur, and a Mandya quite different from the muddy little town that I had somehow visualised. Ambareesh (whom we have something bordering on affection for – thanks to Sumalatha’s mallu movie connection 🙂 ) was everywhere, and thanks to ‘Bulbul’, so was Darshan! Shaded roads, a smattering of brand outlets and large parks, Mandya made a pretty picture. Neither of us knew that we’d meet again in a more elaborate way during the trip, but that’s for later.

    Srirangapatna, Hunsur (which has a few highway eateries) Periyapatna later, we passed Bylakuppe, where ocher and saffron robed monks swarmed, and a couple of them managed to scandalise D when she spotted them in a non-veg restaurant which heavily advertised chicken as a specialty. I told her about the Dalai Lama being a non-vegetarian and she refused to believe me! After Kushalnagar, we were at Madikere just before 12.30. Given that our destination was only about 40 km away, we decided to wait till we got there, for lunch. But 40 km actually took almost a couple of hours, and past Napoklu and Kabbinakad lay the end of our journey – The Tamara, where we had reserved a weekend break package.

    The billing happened first, heh, as did a welcome garland a vanilla drink that was oh-so-refreshing! Since we were reasonably famished, and there was some confusion regarding the room, we went straight to the restaurant. A buffet awaited us, and we weren’t really discerning of what we ate – I remember it as a large blur! Our luggage saw our room before us. A buggy (on-demand and a call away) is the most common form of transport, unless you want to walk, which is a splendid option. We’d specifically asked for Room 111 (or its adjacent 112) because they offered the best view in the property. And so it was.

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    Since even a few thousand words aren’t really enough, here’s a video that D shot.

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BlvcLi0rZM&w=500&h=300]

    As with every other trip, my headache decided to pay a visit in the evening! Thankfully, there was an option to lounge around on the balcony, or to watch the landscape change colour right from the bed! Easy to guess what I chose. 🙂

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    The buffet dinner had a couple of Coorg dishes but not what we had come seeking – pork! But we pigged out anyway. By then, it had begun raining. That meant that our trek planned for 6.30 AM had to be canceled, since the paths would be slippery. I pretended disappointment, but apparently not enough of an act to convince D! Haha. Day 2 would therefore begin a little later. At least one of us was not complaining!

    To be continued…

  • Life of Pi

    Yann Martel 

    Piscine Molitor Patel, or Pi Patel is a a 16-year-old boy who becomes the victim of a shipwreck and survives for 227 days in a lifeboat in the Pacific, accompanied by a spotted hyena, a zebra with a broken leg, a female orang-utan and a 450 – pound Royal Bengal Tiger. That, in itself, makes an interesting story, but what adds to the book’s intrigue is the spiritual subtext that seems to be left open to the reader to interpret. The story itself begins with the words of an old man in Pondicherry, who tells the author “I have a story that will make you believe in God”.

    Part 1 sets up the book quite well. Piscine, named after a swimming pool in Paris, manages to get rid of his first nickname and gets himself to be called Pi. The rest of this part is about his growing up in the premises of his family’s zoo in Pondicherry. He learns a great deal about the ways of animals and we get to see the characters that shape his perspectives – his father who swears by reason, his atheist biology teacher, a Catholic priest, a Muslim baker, and to a lesser extent, his mother and his elder brother. He simultaneously becomes a devout practitioner of Hinduism, Christianity and Islam, something everyone finds difficult to understand. I wonder if the author felt that such a (relatively) sane setting would constrain a spiritual debate and thus the change in scenery.

    Thanks to the uncertain 1970’s, the family decides to relocate to Canada. Tsimtsum, the Japanese steam ship transporting the family and the animals, sinks off the Philippines coast however, with only Pi, a female Orangutan, a hyena, and a Bengali tiger escaping on a twenty-six foot lifeboat. Thus begins the second part ‘Pacific Ocean’, whose initial stages are a savage struggle for survival that ends with two winners – Pi and Richard Parker, the tiger. Pi finally manages to make a raft and set up an alpha-omega relationship with the tiger. The rest of this part is his survival on the sea, as well as his experience with a carnivorous island.

    The last part consists of Pi landing up on the shores of Mexico, where Richard Parker leaves without even a goodbye, and then, his interview with the shipping company representatives. When they refuse to believe his story, he offers an alternate story which also sheds some light on the probable subtexts and leaves the reader wondering whether the animals’ story was Pi’s way of dealing with the things he was forced to do.

    Our ability to do things we would consider repugnant, when it comes to survival, our need for rituals to bring a sense of order to what happens around us are a couple of themes that I could sense. Richard Parker’s character is probably the side of Pi which he is forced to bring out for survival. The way in which he demarcates their separate areas physically is probably a metaphor for how much Pi would allow it to dictate him.

    Pi’s disdain for agnostics is brought out directly early in the book and the flow of the book would indicate that everything we experience is for a reason and is not a random coincidence. Pi would probably like us to believe that there is a higher power that has filled the world with amazing wonders, each of which has its own significance in the order of things.

    The carnivorous island/algae is the one I found most intriguing. The algae with the sweet exterior that lures in an unsuspecting victim and then kills it later. I read one account that it was a metaphor for Pi’s pessimism. But I’m not convinced. I wonder if it’s a metaphor for what we cling on to in life. The algae, sweet outside and bitter inside, give us a zest for life, and lures us in. Even the dead fish, which serve as a warning, go unnoticed by us. And in the end, it will just suck us in deeper and eat away our soul. But if like the meerkats, we take up a high ground, or like Richard Parker, come back to a haven, we might keep ourselves safe for a while. (Is that a spiritual high ground?) However, in the end, you would have to leave the island completely if you want to survive.

    Like I mentioned, it is the intrigue of demystifying the subtext that will keep you going, even if you find the actual proceedings tedious. A really strange tale indeed, but as Pi asks “What is your problem with the hard to believe?”

  • On Medianama

    Converted the talk at the Social Business Summit into an article at Medianama. It’s long, but do read! 🙂

     

  • For brands to make it….

    At #SBS2013 Jeff Dachis posed an interesting thought, captured by Gautam in this tweet.

    Both Gautam and Haroon then shared interesting links in this context – content from Jeremiah Owyang and Loic Le Meur respectively. (had not seen the first one before) The ‘lunch conversation’ didn’t really happen around this, so I thought I’ll share my thoughts here. 🙂

    Jeremiah’s post also has a link that shows how fast this collaborative economy is growing. Recently, he also wrote a post on the ‘maker movement’, and his experiences at a fair he attended. It also had a short note on how brands could leverage the movement – become enablers, building a marketplace around themselves, and offer customised products directly to individuals.

    At #SBS2013, as part of my presentation on ‘The Currencies of Engagement @ Scale‘ I’d shared a rendition of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to show how engagement should be scaled to (also) satisfy the needs (of a user from a brand) at the top of the pyramid. (slide 17 here) It had both collaborative consumption and co-creation listed as narratives because they traded in the currencies of community and esteem respectively.

    At this stage, I thinks brands have a great chance of being a significant part of the ‘maker movement’ if they can change the outlook of their business processes – from production to marketing. After all, they’re makers too, except that when they attained massive scale, they moved more and more towards a one-size-to-fit-everyone approach, pursuing efficiency @ scale. Again, it is not as though brands who do not change will suddenly cease to exist – it’s just that their narratives won’t be strong enough for any affinity. As I said in  the presentation, there is a limit to the currencies of efficiency narratives – cheaper, faster etc – because once a better player comes along, a switch is imminent.

    In the medium term, these brands will exist because not everyone has the same involvement with every category. Let’s take the example of an automobile. I still ride a two-wheeler, because for me the narrative is a very functional one – move from Point A to Point B. When I do buy a car, it will continue to exist in the functionality narrative, but I know several for whom the car is a reflection of their achievements in life. Just like the t-shirts I wear are a representation of my philosophies. For those several, a t-shirt might just be another garment they wear, or again, a representation of their material possessions – easily captured by wearing a costly brand with little involvement in the design. My belief is that in every domain, there’ll be enough consumers who buy a brand for the currencies they offer at lower levels, (price, convenience etc) and that will continue to be the short head. (in the long tail concept) But as time passes, the economics won’t work out because the resources a brand has to spend to keep its consumers would prove to be far more than the money it makes out of them.

    At this point, all the narratives at the higher levels of the pyramid (co-creation, collaborative consumption) are in the long tail, but brands will soon realise that with evolving technology dynamics, it will have to learn to cater to the long tail, where the currencies will be different. This is most definitely an evolution and not a sudden shift. For starters, brands would have to learn the new dynamics of production and distribution and the impact on their balance sheets. They will have to learn balancing acts. Imagine a branded retail store that allows you to buy their regular products as well as make your own versions (which are also branded – hello NikeID) at various levels of customisation. In terms of economies of scale, the former would be better off with traditional mass production and the latter with a technology like 3D Printing. The online version of this store would also have both, and probably the ability to buy the materials and print it yourself as well.

    It is not just the production side which will require a balancing act, think of what the brand stands for. It needs to speak different languages to different kinds of consumers – from the guy who wants a convenient off-the-shelf purchase to the guy who wants every-part-customised, so that both feel they’ll get value from the brand. There are nuances as well – sometimes my association with the brand is not because it allows co-creation or collaborative consumption, it is only because I identify and relate to other things they stand for – and my consumption of them deals with the currencies in community or esteem. In short, what does it mean for brands? Exactly what’s happening to everything else – massive disruption. The way to tackle it is to try and get a bearing of the narratives your brand should be part of, (oh yes, Big Data and predictive analytics can help) because no brand can compete for every consumer with every maker.

    until next time, break first, then make

    Bonus Read: Emerging Bets at the Intersection of Technology & Culture

  • Axomi

    I’m trying to remember how we came to know about it, but when we did, it had only been a couple of weeks since this restaurant specialising in the ‘Taste of Assam’ had opened. Its predecessor had been Rasoi (if I remember right) and it’s exactly opposite Zingron (map) where we are frequent visitors thanks to the spicy North Eastern dishes that get rid of our sinus blocks! 😉 There are ample side lanes for you to park your vehicle.

    A flight of stairs will take you to what we thought was the restaurant, but though the furniture was there, there was no sign of life. So we climbed another flight of stairs and found a friendly face sitting at a counter in a bright restaurant. In the limited space, there are photographs, handicrafts and knickknacks that clearly bring out the Assam connection. The seating is neat and functional.

     

    The menu is limited, (click for a larger view) so drop in here specifically for the cuisine. No multi cuisine stunts have been attempted. We asked for a couple of basic thalis, and also decided to try the fish fry and the pork fry. Later we also added the duck for good measure!

    The thali has rice with a series of side dishes – an awesome chutney, brinjal both fried and a thick pasty version, dal, papad, a dry mixed veg dish, a mashed potato + chilly combination (pitika) that was superb. I didn’t really like the khar much. The pork was excellent though heavy, and we enjoyed the fish as well. But the duck was probably the best dish, with a refreshing (made from papaya juice, apparently) gravy. It went very well with the Lusi (luchi) we ordered.

      

    We barely had space for dessert, which was a mix of many flavours, though the curd dominated it more than we’d have liked. All of the above cost us exactly Rs.800. The service is pleasant and courteous, and quite prompt as well.

    Axomi, 360, 1st Main Road, Koramangala, Ph : 09986731340