Wayr, from Ciafo, which focuses on building consumer-friendly products, is a location-sharing app which can work without internet or GPS. In conversation with co-founder Amarpreet Kalkat.
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Once upon a place…
Travel used to be something I looked forward to – I can still remember train journeys – from Cochin to Bombay, Chennai to Kolkata and shorter ones, from packed home-cooked food and getting Amar Chitra Katha bought for me at Railway bookstores to bringing books I couldn’t find in railway stores and getting down at stations and sampling local specialty food, the first rides in the Rajdhani and Shatabdi in ’93, from traveling in a group to traveling alone, and from listening to a walkman to listening on a mobile phone, the stories are endless.
Travel then became an escape from the mundane existence with known favourite destinations that would guarantee rejuvenation if only for a few days. Then travel became something I completely avoided, until slowly I began to unravel that mystery in my head, and here.
These days I look forward to my vacations, planning months ahead and carefully choosing destinations. Meticulous planning and research that even D has now gained a knack for. 🙂 The idea of a mass of humanity that vastly differs from me in many ways, and yet connected to me by that sometimes intangible human chord. The sense of possibilities, the immense perspectives that one gathers just by observing a different way of life, and the comforting knowledge that I am not alone in matters of the human condition.
until next time, we’re busy getting Balistic next week 🙂
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Lunatic in My Head
Anjum Hasan
Though this is the author’s debut, I happened to read it after I read the second work – Neti Neti, which can arguably be seen as a sequel of sorts to this book, not just because its protagonist happens to be Sophie Das, a character introduced in this book, but also because both the books seem to have a common theme of a search for belonging.
‘Lunatic In My Head’ has four principal characters. Firdaus Ansari, who teaches English literature to an apathetic class, pursues an elusive PhD, finds it diffuclt to connect to the authors she’s dealing with, fights staff room battles, suffers from near OCD and tries desperately to remain in love, as she lives with her grandfather, both of them conscious of a fragile balance that allows them to endure each other.
Aman Moondy, Civil Services aspirant, obsessed with Pink Floyd with a bunch of friends, each fighting their own battles with parents, siblings, lovers and representing the life of youth stuck in a small town.
Sophie Das, eight year old daughter of an English professor who refuses to be realistic and his wife who feels her husband has stopped caring for the family.
And Shillong, for this book is also about the place, its people, its gossip, its idiosyncrasies, and its clearly visible lines of separation between the natives and dkhar (Khasi word for non tribal person)
Each of them also live in their own fantasy world too- Sophie, who cooks up a story of being adopted, and Aman, who thinks Roger Waters makes songs based on the letters he sent him. The smallness of the town is perhaps emphasised by the degrees of connection between the characters, how their paths cross, and how intertwined their lives are.
Divided into chapters such as ‘Wonder’, ‘Sadness’, ‘Love’, ‘Courage’, ‘Disgust’, ‘Fear’, ‘Anger’, ‘Joy’ and finally ‘Peace’, the book passes through what can be seen as a cycle, and uses the mundane occurrences in a small town to reflect mindset and the paradoxical static and dynamic nature of the place and the people there. What takes it to a higher level is the moodiness that seems to reflect rainy and misty Shillong itself.
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Clean Fanatic
CleanFanatic unites its twin passions of cleaning and entrepreneurial spirit to keep your household free of allergens and dust. In conversation with founder Nishant Prasad.
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