like a markov chain

my definition of true love is that it is memoryless, a function of the present regardless of the past. when you can be with someone at any given moment, and love them for who they are then and there, that love is true. and it isn't about how many years you've been together, or the beautiful romantic times you've shared. it's the here and now that decide the ever after...

'fast car' plays on the radio. it's one of those most-undoubtedly-right songs in my book.

classes decided

more or less.

mw 9-10.50 econ. development & education (ceras)
mw 1.15-3.05 understanding learning environments (cubberley)
tt 12.35-2.05 going green (mitchell)
mw 3.15-5.05 bootcamp (sweet)
thu 6-8 bootcamp lab (sweet)
w 6.20-7.50 ldt seminar (wallenberg)

hurrah for the three-day weekend!

some things

they never, ever, ever change.

truly.

yay!

i'm in the d.school bootcamp class. excited. going green is also exciting.

otherwise, the day was average. i expect the week(s) will slowly get better.

first day

of classes. a and i went through my list of classes yesterday to figure out my shopping list for the week. i had 7-8 classes to check out and decide on. but in that list i forgot to include the economic development and education class i was meaning to attend. this morning, after first miraculously waking up at 6.45 am, i went back to sleep and got out of bed at 8. ready at 8.30, i decided to check the schedule again, to see when that class was. turned out it was at 9. shucks. i rushed out of the house, but i didn't even know where the building was. walked fast as i could to the main quad. by 9.30 i was in class (thankfully the class was two hours long).

the class was good. i might get to visit my economics concepts again, but it's 5 units and a bit of a stretch. still, the class is excellent - i hear, so i think i'll settle for the 5 units.

went to meyers second floor (for the very first time ever, i might add) to see p. went online in the cluster and felt like an undergrad again. i'm saving my back these days by not carrying the laptop to school. probably a good idea as well. at 12.10, p and i headed to nexus for lunch. met the whole jing-bang there - of s, a, b, n, and v. the food was great - brown rice burger. yum. there was some idle talk of the "school of education look", sleeping in classes, etc. overall a pleasant first lunch. may i add that it could have been better.

the day went further downhill in my understanding learning environments class at 1.15. could barely hear a thing, and my mind tended to wander along all possible realms. i wondered how i could sit there for four hours every week, and do pages of reading every week. that the class is a requirement leaves me no choice, unfortunately. today's class was on behaviorism, and all i'll remember from it is the marijuana influence. the sight of the reader is hugely intimidating.

i was pleased to head over to sweet hall after. it's a great place (though i'd never have imagined i'd say that, three years ago). you can smell the freedom in the air - the freedom to think, breathe, feel. i loved it the moment i stepped onto the second floor. since only a third of the people who attended today can make it to the class, i'm a tad worried. i do hope i make it. class today was too inspiring. i'd be miserable to not get in :(.

first day of classes, and i had succeeded in locking myself out. p and a came to my rescue. the evening was pleasant and unstressful. and i'll look forward to tomorrow dearly.

and oh - i have three-day weekends every weekend. yippee!

religious leanings

should you desire the knowledge - i am an agnostic theist. i believe that the truth value of certain claims, in particular the existence of god, is unknown or inherently unknowable, but i choose to believe in god in spite of this.

more than anything - whether there exists a god or not - i believe that piety, a religious focus, meditation etc. are good for the soul. they help give one's energies a positive, healthful direction. discipline, humility, goodness, and peace of mind are desirable side benefits. spirituality, i believe, encourages good and builds character.

believing is also the first step towards achieving. if a religious outlook encourages one to believe, much good may come of it.

all in all, it is good to believe. it is even better to believe in goodness.

i miss home

i'm homesick. every now and then the feeling creeps in. i'm glad that i documented my trip so comprehensively, but i'm sad that a post title seen in passing can bring about such homesickness. that's all it takes - a wayward glance. but i have good, kind friends who make this place more home-like. and today i procured my box of memories that reminded me of pleasant occasions in my life away from home. god is kind. and the world is my home. my loved ones define the longitudes and latitudes.

cirrhosis of the liver

is not caused by occasional drinks, contrary to popular belief. it is brought about by the habit of drinking 3-4 drinks a day (for men, and 2-3 for women) for a period of a decade.

just thought i'd let you know.

the first rains

last night, there was lightning and drizzle. today, it's rained all morning. the first rains of the season. fall is here. and in fact, it's almost winter. gone are the days of sunshine and cheeriness. we are already into the days of gloom and despair.

ok no - i'm exaggerating. it's not that bad, and in fact - it really helps the cause. when it rains outside, one feels no hesitation in sitting at home and working. to a nice cup of tea prepared by a room-mate :). my most proficient costco space heater compensates for ev's evil spirit that keeps the heating off for another couple of months. the lack of lighting in the house is tolerable, because when it's cloudy outside, it can't possibly be sunny inside.

oh yay, fall is here! i can finally take my camera out to take some pictures of bowdoin. that camera-lover's rewarding exercise that i have not indulged in once but thought about each year. this will be my fifth fall in stanford territory. bowdoin better be photographed. i cannot be useless five years in a row. that would be setting a kind of record. i cannot. i must not.

sigh. soon enough, the streets will be a colorful mix of oranges and greens. and washed clean from the rain everyday. the leaves will be strewn across the roads and will be a pleasure to walk on. in fact, yesterday i found this gigantic leaf in the parking lot of sweet tomatoes. it's rust and green and beautiful.

all in all, it's good.
it's all good yo.

true to its name

just came back from the theater. saw a super bad movie, yes. well to be fair, it wasn't all bad - just much for my sensitivities. but i'm not judging the people i went to the movie with, so don't judge me! i was oh, so glad to be out of the theater. haven't been bored in a movie (in the theater) as far back as i can remember! so bored and repulsed that i couldn't even fall asleep this time.

ok i'm done. friends, please don't let me subject myself to this again. please!

what i want to know

is this:
if you have a friend with questionable morals and an unstable value system, what do you do?

a student again

the morning and afternoon were spent in much idleness, talking about the world in its entirety. over breakfast, lunch, and tea. all seem to have merged into one another in my memories of today.

this evening, i had my first real experience of being an ldt student when i attended the mixer in ceras. a learning experience. the kind school seems to be quite filled up to the brim with.

there was a sense of strong deja vu when i was able to embarrassingly disorient myself to an extent i had experienced on a single occasion, four years ago (i could explain so you could understand, but patience ain't my forte - and not at 1am). i also met j - a most interesting student also experienced in work on india (and interested in south asia). i was pleased to know that he was in the program, and told him as much. we talked at great length about his work and my work and the work of the others in ldt.

dinner was at the b's. and was it fun. played a fruitful game of grab with p, a, and a (fruitful 'cos i won of course :P). came back home and talked forever, but for the last time we decided. there is more to life than late nights, honestly.

oh, for the news

in india, i like mornings best. i love getting up early to go for our morning walk to lodi gardens, even if it means struggling to overcome the desire to continue sleeping - every morning, without fail. in the monsoons, the mornings are so beautiful. it is not yet humid, and the sun is not yet out. the sky, too, looks freshly awoken.

when we come back home, mom makes chai for all of us, which we drink as we read the newspapers. there is also the badaam soaked from the previous night, which i am always too lazy to peel. one of the parents does the needful :). but the best part of this exercise is really the news-reading. it is a pleasure to devour the news, paper after paper - be it entertainment news, the economic times, the editorials, or just the frontpage headlines (perhaps i should have put these in reverse order). the process of going from start to finish is uber-delightful.

i miss this time of day most. luckily, i now have the e-paper to help provide some semblance to mornings in india! it's great! i can turn it page by page, read the headlines one by one, and decide what articles to read more in detail. at the end of the exercise, i feel like i'm in touch with the world. quick and easy. satisfaction supreme.

nothing can bring me quite as close to home as i'd like, but the e-paper tries. that's what counts.

claim to fame

quote in d's paper:

when assembly ends, there is a short break before the kids assemble into their classes. this is when the camera comes out and chaos reigns. there are a million echoing sounds of "torsi aunty" as i click away (torsi means show in kannada). everyone wants to be in the photo, and the kids push and pull to be in the frame. [...] they're happy to pose, and happy to see their friends on the lcd after the picture is taken :). in fact, they are happy any which way, which is one of the things that makes them so special.

"uff...", do i hear?

many firsts

today was a day of many firsts. incidentally, is that not true for every day?! i'm afraid i must make a list to remember them all. so. today was the first time i -

1. woke up at 9.30 in my new house.
2. was hugged by my room-mate before i got out of bed.
3. had (thoughtfully made) microwaved tea in the morning.
4. went to douce france for lunch.
5. had a crepe this year.
   
6. met d.
7. proof-read a paper for chi.
8. proof-read a paper in word! (and may that be the last.)
9. was quoted (one full paragraph!) in a conference paper.
   
10. ate baba ghanoush at coupa.
11. heard p call d m (hyuk hyuk!).
    
12. cooked a 15-min preparation of aloo and dahi that tasted positively yum.
13. ate a meal at home with room-mate alone.
14. wore a sweater, this fall.
    
15. met s, after india.
16. went to starbucks, after india.
17. attended a dhwani meeting, after india.
18. distributed kurtas at dhwani!
19. received a $100 note.
20. used too many italics in my post.

i'll stop at 20. good night!

addendum

in scenario 1, the clones must of course be constructed to love the right people.

in scenario 2, we also need to construct a clone of b to love the original a.

okay, now we're good.

clone for love

i love the idea of cloning. it's a marvelous idea. it could do an immense service to the world of love.

scenario #1:

a loves b, b loves c, c loves a. as the world stands, this triangle would cause much pain and heartache. lives could be lost. enter clones, and all is at rest. a loves b, gets b's clone. b loves c, gets c's clone. c loves a, gets a's clone. all live happily ever after.

scenario #2:

a loves b, b loves a... um, for the most part. a is a horrendous cook (not disclosing genders here). b gets a clone of a - all of a with the culinary package. all live happily ever after.

qed. i'm all for it!

decisions, decisions

there is a long list of courses to go through, and for the first time, i cannot make up on my mind on what i want to study most. wait, allow me to elaborate on the 'first time-ness' of this experience.

in elementary, primary, middle, and (most of) high school - all i wanted to do was play. classes came second to everything at all times, much to the exasperation of my mother. the things we studied in school were almost a nuisance - stuff i had to quickly get out of the way to do the more deserving things in life. and no one ever asked me if there was a course i wanted to take.

in grades 11 & 12, i finally had a choice in the matter. extensive indian conditioning determined my course list though. nope, i didn't complain. i was enough of a nerd. as an undergrad in a school known for its wide array of majors (one could major in voodoo if one wanted), i had to stay focused to pursue my 3 majors (eventually settling for 2). the only kind of courses i took were the courses i had to take. in stanford, nothing changed. there was only one specialization for me. a smooth process of elimination decided the rest.

now is different. an ocean of knowledge out there waits for me to drink it all in. can you imagine the excitement? can you imagine the daunting task at hand? not that this brings me to better my habits. i procrastinate as usual, but importantly - with heightened enthusiasm.

chapter one

it took me a long time and most of the world to learn what i know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while i was chained to a wall and being tortured. i realised, somehow, through the screaming in my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, i was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. it doesn't sound like much, i know. but in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it's all you've got, that freedom is a universe of possibility. and the choice you make, between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life.

this is shantaram's insightful and thought-provoking beginning. it is something of a comfort to realize that what is within, is in our control. what we make and break of it - our decision entirely.

i love this book, dearly and deeply. so much so that i read 10 pages and then read them again, and each read is a pleasure in itself. a literary masterpiece. yes, i can tell from the first 20 pages that i've read.

(an earlier reference)

light is everything

as a photographer, i love light. i love what light can do to things. everything on earth is beautiful in the right kind of light. it's all about the lighting. you get the picture (pun intended).

the sun is an object of obsession. in palo alto. in india. everywhere. i love the sun and the warmth (/heat) that it exudes. i feel for those who have not the pleasure of seeing it everyday. what would the world do without sunshine? clearly it would not quite be itself (pun intended)!

but ah, my lamp - it is beautiful. my precious paper lamp that leaks out light in a most gentle, passive fashion. it's more than just a lamp. it is a light-giver, a precious memory, a thing of beauty, a reliever of stress - all in one. feel free to smirk at this post, but i can feel a rise in the happiness levels of the room every minute that this lamp stays on.

sadly, it is time enough to turn it off.
good night now.

mission accomplished

the kitchen is organized.
the food was cooked.
the sink has been cleaned out.
the table shines.
life is beautiful.

deja vu

back at stanford. 'new' graduate student. re-settling into that same old routine. driving around ayrshire lane last night as i looked for a parking spot, i was reminded of many nights spent in the search of parking near home. also of hesitating to drive out because it meant coming back home and looking for parking again, then not being able to find any and walking a long way home. walking on the cool grass from the laundry room to my house reminded me of many evenings spent doing just that. a while ago when i was a resident at angell court. i am sure that next week will overwhelm me further, once classes begin.

my insides seem to be begging for more time to adjust to the changing environment. there is hardly time to catch up with the changes outside, when i still contend with the changes within. why do people ask me how my 'trip' was? it wasn't a trip, it was a journey. almost a process - of discovering - my surroundings and myself. i was gone for 3 months, but the sheer richness of my experiences leaves me convinced that time cannot be measured in hours and days alone. i must've been away for a year, maybe more. really.

when i am asked what i did in india, i have no answers. there is no short answer. the myriad experiences are too hard to list. i could go on a milestone basis - jet lag, idiscoveri, goa/bombay, wedding, bangalore, mysore, delhi again, lucknow, mission 2007, nucleus, mom's return, viral fever, fashion designing - and while some encompass too little and some all too much, i cannot possibly dive into any of these in a conversation that must end in, well, less than a day.

and back to stanford. today p and i went out to purchase my (most expensive) parking permit. came back so that p could take a nap before we leave again to do some extensive grocery shopping for the house. no, for home.

home. what a delightfully loaded word. in a mention, it puts one's heart and head at ease. in a mention, all is familiar, all serene. i love "home". i love home... 101.3 plays all over again, reminding me of days of yore - lying in bed with the radio on, and feeling a thrill run inside when the 'right' songs came on. what defines 'right'? who knows. one of life's mysteries.

today, we'd like to have the kitchen all set up and beautiful, so we can start cooking right away. enough of sandwiches and burgers, i need some good solid indian home-cooked food inside me.

i think i'm done rambling.

the beginning

today was a day to remember. having started on a positive note, it stayed that way - filled with much peace and happiness.

i am now proud - of my new apartment, my new room-mate, and the good old friends that god has been kind to bring my way. as i lie in (my new) bed, listening to the radio, in the light of my precious (paper) lamp, with my very own (newly washed) sheets, i feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude towards the world that i am here to see this day.

thank you, world.
you're beautiful!

on poetic exchanges

eons ago, while i was training for my marathon to raise funds for asha, i had composed the following to ask potential donors to contribute to the cause:

With much regard may I remind
Ye gentle souls of giving kind -
Of races waiting to be run,
Of sweaty workouts in the sun,
Of miles run, many more to go,
On trails and tracks, hills high and low.

Of taking steps to educate,
To grant a child a better fate,
A better life, a better morrow -
Not one he must beg, steal, or borrow.
Is there a sight that touches more
Than a smile one has not seen before?

For knowledge does contentment bring,
And lets a caged soul take wing.
So give to this worthy cause, I ask,
Help Asha do its noble task.
And make this world a wee bit brighter,
As hearts become a little lighter.

r, a kind and caring friend, forwarded this request to his friends, in turn (not on my asking, may i add). q wrote a response:

_, it has been some time
Since I have seen a plea in rhyme.
Verse that, quite eloquently,
attests to your sincerity.
Which makes it very hard to choose
To stick with conscience -- and refuse.

It's easy to donate in cash --
'Twas mine, 'tis his, then theirs, then trash;
But money, when the deed is done,
Ennobles not the giving one.
I'm not a man, if truth be told,
Whose charity is weighed in gold.

We pull down virtue from its shelves
Only when we give -- ourselves.
And cash, I find, has far less traction
Than fiery dreams and heart-felt action.
I'll run the race, I'll teach the kids...
But cash, alas, my faith forbids.

cash or no cash, i was pleased beyond measure to receive this response (if only all the other donors had known it :). i followed in kind:

This cash that you talk of -
It grows not on trees.
So save as you must,
And spend as you please...

'Cos a cause that is noble
Will find its own way,
To success and completion
Come. What may.

For it's not in your hands,
Nor in his, hers or mine,
To come in the way
Of a sun that must shine.

And as long as there's faith,
And belief in the heart,
The finish is inevitable -
All one needs is a start.

not surprisingly, he wrote back:

An idea whose time has come
Is powerful, all right,
But where's the point in starting well
When there's no end in sight?

Yes, noble causes will attract
Most noble folks' attentions ---
But "noble causes" are as cheap
As talk -- and good intentions.

Dreamers will not heal the world,
And you and I both know it:
More likely, that's a job for an
Engineer (or a poet)..

And in the final reckoning,
Perhaps you'll find it true
The Whole World can't achieve what One
Ambitious Man can do.

i believe the thread ended there, perhaps suitably so :). i thought it was worth a post.

saturday, india

today, i had mehndi (mixed with raw egg) on my head for a few hours. it was a most unpleasant experience. the egg had an overpoweringly gross smell, and not only did it completely override the beautiful aroma of the mehndi, i had to breathe through my mouth the entire time. anyway, when i decided to undertake the monumental task of showering, it took only an hour to wash it all off (with much hair loss, unfortunately). the shower tired me out so thoroughly though, i was zonked for the rest of the day. plopped on the bed, ate lunch, plopped some more. mom and dad allowed me a blissful 3-hour afternoon siesta, and gosh - am i grateful!

on waking up, i 'pretty please'd dad to take me to km during the key last overs of the match (well, last overs, but hardly key). interestingly, we both counted on each other to carry the cash :). penniless, we couldn't park in the convenient paid parking. this meant dad had to wait in the car while i set up bluetooth connections with various phones and tested out their flash lite-ness. it didn't take long to narrow it down to the n76. at a point, enough is enough, really. the n76 is good enough for our needs. and that, my friends, is that.

i am now disappointed and depressed, after india's poor batting performance. why do they always fail me so (and a billion+ others, i guess)? i'm going to switch to watching hockey instead. did you know india's in the semis, and undefeated so far? isn't that amazing? don't we just rock? go hockey!!

i hope your saturday's like mine - minus the depression. toodles.

packing it in

the last few days have been crazy busy, and the coming five promise the same. i leave on the morning of the 12th, which means i have four morning walks left, five possible swims, at least two trips to the tailor, much shopping, hence much packing, and a fair amount of work. i am also meant to carry back a good number of things for a good number of people - gosh, so much to remember. i'll resist the need to write it down for now. let push come to shove.

i was at dilli haat today. wow. there was nothing i wanted to buy. i don't know if that has happened in the history of time. i was also at khadi bharat, where i bought several things. maybe there's an observation to be made. i also ran into a charming little shop called the shop, that i am glad to have discovered. it belongs to the same row of shops as the people tree - a store for the socially/environmentally conscious. i consider myself a target audience, but i liked nothing enough to purchase :(.

on our way home, i decided to make a stop at the hanuman mandir in cp. it wasn't a tuesday or thursday or saturday, but i believe he still heard my prayers. i remembered to recite the chalisa, how could he not?

soon, i must head over to the cellphone store for a hair-ripping experience. if there's time, i'll catch a swim. and see if i survive after the long hiatus. thanks for reading even though none of this was of any use to you :P.

blood suckers

last night, i switched on the mosquito repellent in my room, and promptly fell asleep on my mom's bed. as a result, mom slept on dad's, and dad slept on mine.

in the night, i couldn't sleep. mosquitoes were everywhere. on my toes, in my ear, on my elbows - everywhere. i woke up in agony, and couldn't find the repellent plugged in, so i took the first and only thing i could find (a blanket) and covered myself. the only catch was that the ac was off, and it was hot. i had to make a choice between blood suckers and heat, and chose heat. it wasn't fun.

in the morning, at tea, i told mom and dad about my plight the previous night. they refused to believe me. they said they had begun to sleep without the repellent because the mosquitoes didn't seem to bother them any more. duh, yeah. that's 'cos they're busy sucking the life out of me.

my parents don't believe me, but it's true. what else could explain their (mistaken) belief that the mosquitoes disappeared just as i appeared, and haven't appeared since?!

a walk in the clouds

or something like it. i was just outdoors, in the beautiful garden that adorns the front of our house. as i attempted to 'walk off' the stomach ache that had begun to bother me during dinner, i fell in love with the garden all over again. and with life here and now. all over again.

what it means to be home for 3 months i cannot put in words, and will not try. the garden, however, put me in a very happy place this evening. as i walked on the soft, wet grass, breathing in the fragrance of raat ki rani, i thought about india, i thought about stanford, and sighed a most contented sigh. if i tried, i couldn't find something to make me unhappy today.

project shakti

changing lives and unleashing the potential in rural india.

mobilizing growth in rural india

an article in toi from yesterday talks about the cellphone market in the country, and how it is seeing new-age users like farmers, fruit sellers, who use these phones to boost their businesses. handset manufacturers are now trying to capitalize on this growing demand. here's a summary of the article:

according to a study done by lirneasia and ac nielson, close to 100 million new cellular subscribers are expected to come from the rural areas over the next two years.

nokia recently commissioned a research called mobility development report through the centre for knowledge societies to understand the nuances of this spawning market opportunity. the report identifies seven service areas, namely transport, micro-commerce, finance, healthcare, governance, education and infotainment which could be transformed for rural communities by mobile communications. for instance, public transport is not available in 45% of villages in india, and only 1% of indian households own a vehicle. mobile communication could be used to create and coordinate car-sharing schemes amongst villages, and provide real-time information about public transport service and the ability to make request stops.

the country adds six million new mobile subscriptions every month. the teledensity has increased to 20.52% in july 2007 from 19.86% in june 2007, according to trai. one in every five persons now owns a telephone as the total number of subscribers reached 232.87 million by july.

the total wireless subscriber base has touched 192.98 million now. the rural markets contribute about 5% of the national gsm handset sales, according to a study by lirneasia and ac nielson. this is expected to rise by 25-30% by 2009. and by the end of next year, 3/4ths of india's population will be covered by a mobile network.

the handset makers like nokia, motorola, samsung, lg, and sony ericsson are trying hard to get their indian formula right, to capitalize on the rural market. after extensive study, nokia realized that there are certain aspects of the form factor to be kept in mind. e.g. a farmer is not keen on a camera, but radio capabilities are appreciated since these people are used to listening to music on a transistor etc. the three killer applications when it comes to phones for the rural market are an in-built torchlight, an alarm clock, and the ability to communicate using voice. other useful features include rust-resistant keypads, sturdier models, longer battery life (given power supply issues), and easy to use features/buttons.

language capability is key. nokia has introduced localized interfaces in 9 indian languages. motorola has introduced the motofone, which responds to prompts in local languages. audio levels have also been made higher, for indian market conditions etc. as for the display, experts argue that the display must look nice, for ugly handsets will not become popular amongst the poor. also, a good display offers other pluses that are integral to such audiences.

the onus is on providing people in these areas with services that are tailor-made to suit their needs. commodity prices are the biggest draw for this population. all of them have some sort of produce to bring to the market. provision of timely updates would add to the benefits they stand to gain from the phone.

a study by robert jensen (harvard univ.) on the impact of mobile telephony on fishermen in kerala says that mobiles have not only eliminated the need for fishermen to dump unsold fish into the sea, but helped increase their margins by 8% while reducing prices for customers by 4%. moreover, the number of fishermen selling their catch outside their home markets rocketed from 0 to 35%. the fishermen would call around to find the best price. everyone wants information.

the biggest obstacle is the comfort level associated with text options. there needs to be less dependence on these. also, the pricing. the farmer cannot afford to pay rs. 6 a minute to find out commodity prices. another stumbling block is the lack of a distribution channel for supply, maintenance, promotion and communication of the availability of technology.

the onus, in the end, is on service providers. they must ensure last-mile connectivity and availability of relevant information in a usable format so that mobile phones can make life and work in rural india better.

rbi banking on a comic

a most relevant article for some i know, in today's ht. written by satyen mohapatra.

This is one move that the Reserve Bank of India hopes will pay rich dividends. The RBI has come out with its first comic book titled Raju and the Money Tree to create awareness about basic banking among common people and children.

The attractively designed, colourful comic weaves in basic banking concepts while telling the tale of the main protagonist Raju. It highlights how banks keep money safe, makes money grow by paying interest, issues loans.

RBI regional director of Delhi HR Khan told Hindustan Times: "Five more comic books are in the pipeline. Three of these are on basic banking — one for the rural poor, another for the urban poor and the third based on electronic based no-frills account. The fourth one is on currency and the fifth on the RBI as a monetary authority. We are also planning comic books on banking services for specific target groups such as women, defence personnel, senior citizens."

He explained that despite efforts since Independence to broaden the banking network and develop regional rural banks, 61 per cent of the rural and 40 per cent of the urban population is still not a part of the formal banking network. NSS data has showed that apart from turning to the informal sector for loans, rural people also entrust their savings to this sector.

With the growing concern about "financial exclusion" and efforts being made toward "social inclusion", the RBI felt there was a dire need to acquaint common people with banking concepts and benefits, he explained. And the bank hit upon the idea of using comics to connect with people, Khan said.

The comic, which has also been printed in Braille, will be available in 13 languages — Hindi, English, Oriya, Assamese, Bengali, Urdu, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Gujarati and Punjabi. It is available free of cost and has been posted on the RBI website www.rbi.org.in/commonperson as well.

"We are encouraging banks, schools, NGOs and other interest groups to print the books in required quantities and help in distributing them. We also intend to use village panchayats," he added.

the dhwani project

i've spent the last few days of my life on costume design for 25 members of dhwani. i have no one to blame for this time, energy, and effort lost, since i came up with the madness myself, completely uninitiated. before i give the wrong impression, i must confess, it has been an entirely exciting (though agonizing) experience. not one i would give up for the world, as things stand.

day 0: the idea

the process of freeing myself from the clutches of a deadly viral injected me with inordinate elation. when the brainwave struck, i cannot quite remember, but i soon found myself suggesting the idea to n. the response was enthusiastic, and i mailed the group (trying not to sound too insane). more ays trickled in than nays, and the decision was made.

day 1: the right white

on mail, we'd narrowed down the options to a b/w combination for the girls, with colorful silk dupattas, and color-coordinated kurtas for the guys, with black jeans. mom and i spent all of 4 hours hunting down the right fabric for the girls' kurtas. after having scanned every textile shop in the lajpat nagar main market, we found a side gali which had what i was looking for - an off-white semi-crepe with self-design. ah, bliss! since the shop (monolisa!) didn't have enough fabric then (we needed 21m), they promised to bring it home by 10pm. they did.

and we thought the worst was over.

day 2: to the tailor

all off-white was too boring, of course. i brainstormed with mom to agree on a design that had some elegance and character. after considering borders, laces, and what have you, i decided on semi-brocade pieces to add at the neck, sleeves, and slits. to get these pieces, we headed back to lajpat nagar. mom had just mentioned in the morning that the day-before had been especially stressful, being a weekend and an evening. as long as we went at 11am or on a weekday, she'd be fine. of course, life isn't perfect, and this never happened. we headed to lajpat right at 2pm.

we figured finding the semi-brocades wouldn't take long, since we knew the shops to hit. nothing could possibly be as bad as trudging all over lajpat nagar looking for off-white crepe, we were sure. well. although there were just five shops really, i visited these three times each, also visiting others along the way, so as to coordinate each of the semi-brocade pieces. on average, each meter took me 1/2 an hour to purchase. and of course, i only bought from two shops in the end.

what was most troublesome really, was the mind and the games it played on me. i would've taken less time perhaps, if only i didn't think and re-think "what if i ended up with this kurta? would i feel like i got a raw deal? would anyone else feel that way?", etc. my mom was quite on the verge of disowning me. (incidentally, should you be interested in doing similar shopping in delhi - ram ji & sons and vastra are the best places to hit first.)

i wrapped up at vastra and left quickly. now for the dupattas. for 11 kurtas, i needed 11. these needed to match six semi-brocade pieces. i asked mom to wait outside 'cos i knew my decision-making process, and scanning each dupatta's colors in detail, would annoy her no end. while she waited, i decided on the style i wanted (that and no other), scanned every dupatta in the store that fit the style, and found 11 unique dupattas i could color-coordinate. as i decided on the 11th, i called out to mom to step inside the shop, only to get told off. poor mom, i'd been keeping her waiting an hour outside. she asked me when (if ever) i had stood outside a shop an hour for her, when she had work to do. "if ever" is right :(. i quickly asked her to return to the car, so she could be free from the madding crowd. and the extreme, humid heat.

i spent another hour there, in peace. checked, re-checked, and finally purchased. couldn't quite manage much price negotiation, only 10 rupees. lajpat isn't such a great place for bargaining anyway - the prices are low enough to begin with.

dupattas and fabric all bought, we headed to the tailor. i only had measurements for five of 11 people (those five totally rock, btw!). i gave those anyway, promising the others in a couple of days. much discussion ensued at the tailor's, gosh. the measurements seemed half-wrong, and since i'd shown my mom pictures of some of us in dhwani, she insisted on smaller measurements, while i insisted that we kept the measurements i'd received. oh well.

having given five measurements, i had to pick combinations for each of them. so far, i've tried to assign colors according to individual preferences (those that have been stated anyway). the rest, i'm leaving to god.

day 3: (breather)

k mails to say she's interested too. although she hadn't been an active dhwani member of late, she was on the mailing list. and who knows, she might have wished to join in coming quarters. i now had 12 girls on the list, but only 11 kurtas. after much deliberation on whether it was worth the effort to hunt down the fabric again, in addition to the semi-brocade and dupatta, i wrote to her that it would be significantly easier for her to simply borrow someone's kurta - we don't always all perform together anyway. (after writing that, of course, i went and purchased fabric for her as well, and gave it for tailoring - on day 4.)

day 4: now for the guys

janmashthami. holiday again. daytime again. it was time to shop for the guys. this should be easy, we thought. no tailoring required, we thought. we first headed to fab india in gk-1. we had planned this to be the beginning and end of our search. ha. i did find kurtas i liked, yay! only to realize however, that the quantity was not nearly adequate, and the prices twice as high as we were (or i was) willing to afford. i also found kurtas i didn't like, that were within our range. but then, i didn't like them. after picking out 13 kurtas in the right sizes, i put them all back and left, much to my mom's dismay, though she did agree with my decision.

we headed to shopper's stop in ansal plaza. i'd bought a kurta from here in december. but then, the difference between 1 and a 100, or even 13, is not to be ignored. after much looking, and feeling increasingly disappointed, i had my next brainwave - called to ask dad if we could get the kurtas tailored. he called his tailor, called back, and said that was indeed possible. yippee!

now all we needed was to go through the entire process we had just completed for the girls. yippee indeed (sigh). so we headed to lajpat again. thought we'd head to the shop that was the answer to our prayers three days ago. unfortunately, they didn't have anything i wanted or liked (but i was able to get the extra fabric for k). back to the main market. after surveying a couple of shops (ram ji's and vastra), decided on matka silk, then went through a painstaking process of selecting 13 shades out of 100. 2.5m each. this hadn't been all too bad i thought, as i readied myself to pay by card.

the credit card machine was broken. mom had a pnb card. the shopkeeper told us that if we walked 1/2 a km to the main road, and further down to roxy drycleaners, we'd find three atm machines. he didn't promise a pnb atm though, and we didn't find one. after walking 1/2 an hour in the sun, heat, and failure, we got in the car and went to moolchand. found an atm, returned to lajpat. (incidentally, the state of traffic in lajpat is so horrific, it takes 1/2 an hour to go from one point in lajpat to another.)

having bought the pieces, we headed home for an uber-late lunch. it was 4pm. dad had been home alone all this time, and eaten at 3 after waiting forever :(.

then to the guys' tailor. luckily, we only had to go until km. after arguing some more on measurements, we found we needed 0.75m more of fabric. oh boy! back to lajpat, back to vastra. after constant reiteration of my request and silent prevention of other customers from cutting the line before me, the attendant agreed to hunt down the fabric i'd bought earlier. interestingly, the pile had grown by two feet since i was there last. to fold and put away everything in that pile while customers were crowding in the store would have been a marathon task. so in one swoop, he pushed the pile down to the floor. just like that. brilliant and shocking at the same time. the shopkeeper asked the guy what happened, and he said "oh, i don't know, the pile just toppled over." ha ha ha ha. this tells you what happens to the fabric before it is sewn into clothing you purchase in the belief that it is 'brand new'.

i paid and returned to the car, dodging much people (and vehicular) traffic along the way. now back to the girls' tailor to give the remaining measurements and the 12th kurta. only one set of measurements had arrived since my last trip to the tailor, so mom and i approximated somehow. we told the tailor to do a good job. he (rightly) argued it wasn't fair that we'd given estimates for sizes and wanted every wearer to be satisfied. we'll just have to wait and see.

then there was another trip to km to give the 0.75m fabric for tailoring. and finally, we were home. the day was over - it was so hard to believe. and now, since i know you're tired of reading, as i am tired of writing, i'll settle for an abrupt end. timely updates will be provided.

chak de which india

i don't write as well as the screenplay writer for the movie, obviously. please read what jaideep sahni has to say:

It's been the third week for Chak De India and, to put it mildly, the film is doing much better than what many people expected. There are many things all of us in the team that made the film are thrilled about, but what has given us the most encouragement is the response of the people to the kind of patriotism the film attempts to stand for.

There was a time, post-Independence, when we were perhaps smarting from being ruled for so long by foreigners, and there was perhaps a tendency to feel better about ourselves by being slightly unkind to foreigners in our references, especially in our films. So you would see a bird shitting on a bald foreigner’s head arising from a hope in the filmmakers’ hearts that the audience would derive some kind of vicarious pleasure. There were references to how our civilisation gave the world everything that was good in it, and perhaps they did reflect the popular feeling in the newly independent nation.

But that was then. Over the last decade or so, as the country and the economy have opened to the world, the suspicion and awe of the foreigner has been replaced by a confidence, not always quiet, and sometimes bordering on a techno-cricket-film chauvinism. And as we went about making a film celebrating India’s women athletes, we were faced with some decisions about the kind of patriotism we would reflect.

On the one hand was the almost blind love for the flag among the athletes who were our inspiration, and we had to stay true to them. On the other was our own hesitation to seem like we were guilty of wrapping our story in the flag, which may be the conventional wisdom in the industry, but which makes our stomachs churn. For us their story was a story of people daring to dream, and going flat out to achieve it in the face of all kinds of odds which athletes from developed nations have never even heard of.

And we made our choices. We chose not to falsely glorify everything about India. We chose not to skirt the issues of gender, religion, region and language biases but take them on, because we thought that was patriotic. We chose not to conveniently edit out the inconvenient truths, hiding behind national team’s thrust forward as examples of perfectly channelised nationalism by sports administrators. We chose to display our admiration for incredible people in unfashionable clothes, many belonging to parts of India which the shining new India doesn’t have much time for. We chose to giveutmost respect to the foreign teams and coaches our team played against, and not portray them as devils incarnate out to destroy our 5000-year-old civilisation.

We chose to treat athletes like athletes, irrespective of the fact whether they were Indian or foreign, women or men, winners or losers. And we did all of this not because we thought we were some great messiahs who would redefine either films or nationalism, but as storytellers telling a story the only way we understood it — with the sensibilities that made sense to our hearts and minds. We tried to neither use chauvinistic patriotism to push our characters for commerce, nor sweep the genuine patriotism of national athletes under a carpet of chic modernity.

And today, even in the third week, the audiences are rewarding us, scene after scene, in theatres all over India.

What does this show? To us it appears to show the same thing that general elections in this country have shown, decade after decade. That the Indian people are by and large reasonable, like to live with each other, and believe in a patriotism that is not violent, chauvinistic and stupid. And they are perfectly happy to look within themselves, warts and all, and still be proud of what they need to be proud of. They don’t need films, politicians or supposed external enemies to feel more Indian. There is a time honoured name for this kind of patriotism — it’s called the spirit of sportsmanship.

And there is another thing we learnt while researching for the film. As we spent more and more time with the sportspeople — players and coaches — we began realising that sport may probably be the most powerful way to build character in the young and teach new generations about honest ways to achieve recognition. It kept coming to us while writing and making the film but we were worried that it may sound like a lecture. So we didn’t talk about it directly, but we hoped that it would kind of lurk somewhere in the sub-text and touch viewers subconsciously — even magically.

I was trained to be a computer engineer and am a great believer in the power of information techno-logy to bring in positive change in developing societies. But in the course of researching for this film it dawned upon me that in the race to produce the engineers, doctors and managers so necessary for a developing nation, we have ended up completely ignoring sports and arts in our resource allocation — and we may end up a nation of selfish techno-yuppies with very little character development, a distaste for teamwork and a weird understanding of what this nation is, what its needs are, and where we and our personal quest for success, recognition and achievement can fit into all this. Maybe this is too simplistic an assumption. But then again, it may not be. And in that case, the cost of not addressing it right now may be somewhat more than what it takes to make a film.

Sahni is screenwriter and lyricist of ‘Chak De India’. He has previously written scripts for films like ‘Company’, ‘Bunty aur Babli’ and ‘Khosla ka Ghosla’

chak de! india

having seen the first half, i'd been looking forward to the second for almost two weeks. today, we saw the rest on dvd. and no kidding, it blew my mind!

• the actors were each true to their role. they're not from the backgrounds they represent. not all, anyway. the representation, however, is without flaw. right from coach kabir khan to the haryana superstar, and the girls from the north-east - brilliant casting.
• it truly awakens the indian in you. where it comes to india pride, this movie takes the cake.
  
• i love that the end is on a super-duper high note. what makes it so charming is that it's based on a true story. you can't say "it's just a movie" anymore. i love it.
• i love the diversity factor, and the regionalistic tendencies that are shown - that we, as a people, harbor within.
  
• linked to the diversity factor is the linguistic factor - the bond these girls share in spite of the language divide, as the fundamental transcends the superficial.
  
• team-building doesn't automatically happen. it needs to be initiated, often forced. to see a dysfunctional team slowly work its way to the top is immensely heartening. a reinforcement of my idealistic belief that we all share some things in common, on a very basic level. that if we only try, we can realize the peace and harmony that we're seeking in the world around us.
• i must be true to the (oh, so mild) feminist in me and admit - i loved the movie for the women, for the taboos they helped destroy. for the team that won its country all that honor, working so relentlessly, to prove.

please go see it if you haven't already! chak de india!

the longest birthday ever

incidentally, my birthday was 15 days ago, but i'm still getting presents :). yesterday, i received beautiful, colorful flowers from a dear well-wisher. today, i received the book i was waiting to read (as i'd written earlier) thanks to more well-wishers. incidentally, they didn't even know i was referring to this book in the post above.

how sweet!

it doesn't matter that i already own this book. the old copy will be disposed off asap. and now i have the book to look forward to in my flight back.

life couldn't possibly get any better, could it?