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?

lady luck shines

it occurred to me yesterday that, while i was still in india, i could arrange for outfits for all of dhwani to wear on 11/3 (and in future, when needed). the idea was exciting, especially since i had just started to recover from the viral. unable to contain my energy levels, i sent mail to all of dhwani right away. discussion ensued, and ultimately, many voiced their agreement. those who didn't, haven't written either way. so now, we had a plan to get the outfits made, the design had been finalized, i was also hyper-excited about letting my (however limited) creative juices flow. incidentally, few things excite me more than color coordination.

there was just one slight hitch. we didn't have a way of transporting these to the u.s. baggage limitations are high, and i certainly didn't have room (my 3 month stay justifies that, yeah?). the people i'd hoped to count on bailed on me, but to be fair, they'd never known i'd ask :). one of them needs to carry a cricket kit back to stanford, and the other - a tanpura, so no hope there. i sent mail again - to bring to light the possibility of things 'not happening'.

an hour later, my cousin (in delhi) called to say he had to make an urgent work trip to sf tomorrow. and if i wanted to send any luggage with him, i could. wow. although i'm sad that i won't get to see him again, because he leaves tomorrow and returns when i head out, i was elated at the turn of events and the possibilities it opened.

there is such a thing as luck.
if you believe!

and another's perspective

i was wasting time on facebook, trying to make sense of the faces i'd just seen, and the names i'd just learned. i stumbled upon this blog post (excerpt):

Had a chance meeting with a Stanford CS alum today. She re-instated my perception of what life would at Stan, but also made me realize that what you make from an opportunity largely depends on you. It is not going to be an easy life - a fact I was always, except the for the last few days, cognizant of. Her words would help me be calmer and mentally better prepared for the challenges that lay ahead.

the alum in question is me, of course. it gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside :).

yeah, i know

you're not going to believe i was all that sick when you see all these posts. it's not true, i really was. in fact, i'll have you know that i was almost hallucinating this morning, and sent mails at 6am that i had no idea i'd sent. (until i received a response with my mail attached below.) so yeah, i was indeed sick. and your sympathies weren't in the wrong place. nope, i promise. just that i'm so happy that i finally got better ('cos yesterday it didn't look like i would) that i'm jumping for joy right now. yippee!

ok, enough already. time to get some shut-eye.
*cough, cough*

some things in life

i tell you, are completely unfair. i just got the following mail from the international students office:

To Returning Women International Students:

Can you help welcome NEW international WOMEN students in September?

The I-Center will hold a special reception for them on
Friday, Sept. 21, from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.
in the I-Center living room.

We invite you (returning women international students)
to come and welcome the newcomers
and share your experience at Stanford with them.

If you can help, please send the following information
Name :
Department and degree program:
Email address:
Home country:

to Gwyn Dukes <_@stanford.edu>
Many thanks for helping new women students to
get a feeling for the Stanford "campus culture".
Light refreshments will be served.

not only did i not receive this mail when i started at stanford last, i didn't receive it this time either (i.e. the new student mail). instead, i get asked if i'd help new students get a feel for the stanford campus culture. who's going to teach *me* to get a feel for the stanford campus culture? huh?

huh?

life in the metro

in all my sickness, i completely forgot - i finally had the brilliant luck to travel in dilli's pride - the metro. last sunday was the ncr meet for new_stanford_studs (yeah, that's what they're called) and i went along with a. the meet was at 5, and since there didn't seem to be enough time to go and return, i almost resisted. thanks to a's persistence though, i got my first ride on the metro (cp->chandni chowk->cp). thank you, a!

i am amazed as hell. the metro absolutely, without question, rocks. i was reminded of the bart as i got on board. admittedly, lines (of people, not trains) are not as orderly, but that's a pan-delhi problem, we can leave it aside for now. it was heaven to be inside the train station, and the train, because the ac blasted cold air on you (in form of respite from the sweltering heat outdoors), and the surroundings were blindingly clean. i like the token system too - you pay at the counter for a token, and when you get out, the exit gate eats up the token. no trash generated, it's wonderful. the security was stiff, since the metro is perennially under threat (understandably). unfortunately, this also meant i couldn't take any pictures in metro premises. that wasn't so cool. i wasn't happy to lose the token either, could have kept it as a memoir. all in all though, i was pleased.

pleased, also because i got to see chandni chowk for the first time. i'd been to red fort by car, but that was 16 years ago. and it was straight to the red fort. although the market was closed (sunday), it was an odd (good-odd) feeling to be in a place of such historic value. i was reminded of 1947 earth, and wondered about the plight and plunder of these surroundings 60 years ago.

we walked around for a while. it must be over a km, in not-so-kind weather conditions. i was also a tad conscious about the attention my camera would grab, and didn't take it out once. a must have wondered what kind of photography enthusiast i was. not a very brave one, that's for sure! i was warned by a photographer friend once, that one should be careful in india - where people can rob cameras off you, forget steal (i remember trying to process the difference first :)). i don't like to think those things about my country, but i also don't want to risk losing my camera to prove my patriotism. hence, no shots of chandni chowk (there really wasn't much to take on a holiday anyway, to tell the truth). i did take some of the metro station though, when we finally got back to it. there weren't too many people around, so i felt brave. it was also the now or never factor that did it.

tgif (where we all met) was interesting. i met 9/10 new stanford students, eager to get to stanford and get started. i do remember their names, surprisingly. though i needed two rounds of introduction to be honest. (at least i was honest though :). i wonder how many of them remember my name!) one of them had worked in ms for 7 months, and hated it with a passion. i was forced to defend the truth, and let everyone know that ms was, in fact, a good company to work for. the conversation went on for a while longer, with him complaining about how much work he had to do there etc. well... i also got asked why i was switching careers. i have a rehearsed answer to that now, but the guy who asked thought it was too diplomatic. i'm not sure i'd call it diplomatic, but i'll think of a better line and post it here for review first, ok?

nevertheless, it was nice to see so many eager students, excited to start their lives at stanford. i'm not nearly at that point in life, but i'm happy to be where i am. regardless.

update: the curse of the blueline

a few days ago, i had written about the curse that is the blueline.
yesterday it claimed its 75th victim for the year '07 - a 12 year old boy.

"the world is my garbage can"

a couple months ago, we saw a vendor selling bhutta. i didn't get any, but s did. it takes a while to eat bhutta, so he continued to eat it in the car. when he was done, he rolled down his window, threw out the bhutta, and rolled the window back up. i didn't say a word. i couldn't, because i was watching in shock to realize just what he was doing. when it struck me, it was too late to point out. i made a mental note to say something the next time it happened.

after much thought, i also realized that preaching to someone i barely knew would only earn a deaf ear. whether it was the ideal course of action, i do not know, but i chose to teach by example instead. so when there came an opportunity for me to save trash instead of chucking it out randomly, i would do the former and make a verbal statement to have it noticed. perhaps it wasn't clear enough though, because there was the other occasion of a friend chucking some batteries out of the car. i asked him what he had just done. he said "i threw out the batteries", almost questioningly. i asked "but why did you do that?", only to be told "oh, they were old batteries". oh, yeah, like that made it all kosher.

these are just two examples i came face to face with. the streets of india tell you how grave this reality is. years ago, when i was 9, my cousins (born/brought up in the u.s. and abcds in every way) were visiting. we were on a trip to udaipur, when one of them threw orange peels out of the car. when my uncle told her to throw them in the trash instead, she said "but india's one big trash can, dad". i was livid (yes, at 9) but what could i say, when we'd seen enough examples along the way of people eating things like moongaphali and throwing the shells on the streets with sheer apathy.

years later, the scene on the streets is worse, if anything. what does one do with the people for whom india is indeed one big trash can? if only there were a way of identifying the litterer for every piece of litter on the streets. maybe we could get dna samples, find the wrong-doer, and charge insane fines. yes, that's a dream. and i wonder - even if the trash had their name and address written on it, would they care? does it embarrass these callous indians ever so slightly that the world knows they're littering? it certainly doesn't embarrass them that india is widely recognized as a filthy country due to them.

one could argue that there aren't enough trash cans around. this is perhaps true. i know that when i was first in germany, i was fascinated to note the number of trash cans in any vicinity. there was almost always a choice of the closest one to go to. all bus-stops had at least one, as did parks, walking trails, malls, etc. if we did that in india, would things improve? remotely, perhaps. the option is still worthwhile to explore. the bigger problem, i think, still lies in the mind. when the majority of the population is used to living with litter, the "chal raha hai, chalne do" attitude rings in. the inertia is never-ending.

i'm not in a position to make far-reaching changes here. with my writing, all i can hope to do, is appeal to you to do your part in the avoidance of litter. it doesn't hurt to just save it till you find a trash can, no matter how much later. you don't trash your laptop, your handbag, shopping bags, etc. as soon as you're done with them. then why not hold on to your trash for a little while longer? it's your trash after all. if you're reading this, the likelihood of you being a litterer is mighty low (i'd like to think). in which case, i appeal to you to share the message with others you know.

clean is beautiful. respect your surroundings so they can respect you.

chak de india!

i read the indian express today, front to back. what excited me most was the sports section (perhaps because it felt so new, having read it all but frequently). what with sania in the 20s (27th in wta rankings), india winning the nehru cup (go pradeep!), hockey fever running high (thanks to chak de! india), and more cricketers on the field (if encouraged by the bcci-icl war), india's doing better and better these days.

so so pleased.
go india!

in sickness

most of the day was spent reading (finishing) in spite of the gods. it's (yet) another book on india - informative and insightful, and a good historical account if you have gaps in your knowledge of the history of india like i did. it's mostly unbiased, except when he (the author) gets passionately critical about some things (reasonable, given his background). a good read, nevertheless. communalism, secularism, corruption, the nehru-gandhi dynasty, economic reform, globalization, india's ties with u.s., china, and pakistan - it's all in there.

i also saw absolute power, a dumb english movie starring clint eastwood and gene hackman. gene hackman, the u.s. president and philanderer, gets involved in the murder of a woman he sleeps with. clint eastwood, a skilled thief, plays witness to the murder. the woman who died was the high-profile wife of a billionaire who gene hackman owes his presidency to. so it's really quite complicated - the plot - and ends with the president's assassination (however, the world thinks it's suicide). bizarre, yes?

then i saw home alone 2. there's something very comforting about watching home alone (1/2). reminds me of winter vacations back in school, when we'd huddle under the rajai and watch video tapes rented from khan market. movies on christmas were always a treat to watch, for we had no concept of snow (or snowmen, or shoveling, or for that matter christmas itself).

so that was my day - free from the clutches of the internet, and filled with reading and watching for the inability to sleep. it is already tomorrow today, and i am much better - thanks to all of your wishes.

god bless you all :).

can i have some sympathy, please?

here, i'm almost dying, and people think it's drama. please believe me, i am really grossly ill. i don't care about the boy-who-cried-wolf story, i need sympathy NOW.

*sniff sniff*

no, i'm not still crying, but i do have a horrendous cold. i imagine some kindred soul brought it to the swimming pool with generosity, yesterday. now, a few days of suffering. in future, i shall drink haldi milk after every swim.

i am in website design mode. after working on the sia website, i decided to make my own. please visit it at www.stanford.edu/~firstnamelastinitial (my stanford id, i.e.) and tell me what you think. and ask me any questions you might have.

nostalgia is...

listening to the crickets sing, the fan go at maximum speed, silence otherwise, but for "tere bina... chand ka sona khota re..." playing faintly in the background.

nostalgia is this.

k.a.n.k.

last night, i had the torturous misfortune of seeing kabhi alvida na kehna. gosh, what an overdose of emotional drama. i'm still reeling from it. it's based on closer, but in a very bollywood sort of way. everyone, in one way or another, lives happily ever after, but i found myself shedding tears through most of it. (i don't think i'm over the roller-coaster ride yet...)

i wish people wouldn't make such movies. they play games with your mind. get you to attach, and empathize. at the end of it, you (well, i) feel cheated. because, after all, it's "just" a movie.

failure

sigh. the other day i committed an enormous gaffe. m, s, and i were at mc. donald's, friday afternoon in cp. there were no tables downstairs, so we went to the first floor and found a table for 4 that had just been vacated. of course, the people before us didn't think it necessary to clear their crap, so we had to dump their trays for them. the table was still dirty, and i was keeping an eye out for an attendant who could wipe it for us.

then climbs up a man carrying a tray. i don't go to mc. donald's nearly enough to instantly realize that it has a self-service counter, and that customers carry their own trays to their tables. what it says about my personal biases on appearances, i don't even want to get into, but i quite spontaneously assume the guy to be an attendant, and immediately ask "isko thoda saaf kar denge? (could you please clear this up?)".

i realized my mistake almost as the words fell out of my mouth, and would've given anything to suck them back in that second. the shock was apparently quite visible, because the guy was kind enough to laugh and say "it's ok". i did apologize ten times, thought of other nice things to say but only "sorry" came out. i hope he's forgotten and forgiven, since.

of course, then i had to face m and s at our table, and that wasn't fun. if i was already at 11, on an embarrassment scale of 1 to 10, they took me to 100. i am relieved to say that the moment has now passed, the embarrassment subsided, and lessons learned.

40

the plan, incidentally, had been to go to the red fort/jama masjid and shoot some pictures. but today, of all days, it decided to rain and the plan was scrapped. i figured i might as well spend the evening at the pool.

40 lengths today. that's 720m and the most i've ever swum at a stretch. it took a while, admittedly, and i saw many swimmers come and go as i stayed on, trudging along. life is made of these mini-marathons. i decided if i could do the big one, i could do these too.

incidentally, i can't seem to stop using the word "incidentally" these days. in fact, even when i mean to use "apparently", "incidentally" comes out, and i quickly change my sentence to make sense. sigh.

falling in love

it's like falling in love with someone you haven't met, nor spoken to, just heard mention of. i can't wait to get back to stanford and read this book. it has gripped me already.

paradigm shift

here's where i was earlier.

now i'm a ( -0.50, -6.56 ).

the one!

it feels as though i've been waiting for this book all my life. i haven't really, but it feels that way, for it addresses the very questions that have been preying on my mind this last month. today, at a meeting with n, the md handed me this book so i could find use in one of its chapters. when i started reading the preface, i was awe-struck. euphoria unlimited.

the book is called the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid and is written by c. k. prahalad.

it's the only one i have

given that we have only one life to control in totality, given that death is certain, assuming for convenience that the length of our lifetime is predetermined, it seems we are left with two choices really. either we spend our lifetime in laughter and happiness, or we spend it in misery and stress. if, at every discernible unit of time, we are faced with two isolated possibilities, is it rocket science to figure out which path we should end up taking?!

yes, this is an oversimplification. we rarely find ourselves in such clear-cut situations, you'd think. the truth is though, we need to force that choice upon ourselves, in more cases than not. it's all about getting accustomed after all. first, forcing the habit. then, natural ease.

me, whee!

the more i think about it, the more i realize how fundamentally narcissistic i am. (i would go so far as to say this applies to many more of us than not, but for now i steer clear of making baseless statistical statements. this post, therefore, is about me alone.)

i seem to love everything that i associate with myself - my parents, my sister, my childhood, the schools i attended, the friends i have had, my books, my music, my memories, you get my drift (my drift, ha). not only that, i certainly love my parents, sister, childhood, etc. more than i love anyone else's. isn't it strange? is it?

... my country, like no one else's. my dreams, my aspirations, like no one else's. well, maybe that's not true. maybe yours too, but only because you are one that i love.


nb: the title of this post is, in fact, the world's shortest poem (courtesy muhammad ali).

the last leg

when i arrived in india on the 10th of june, i thought i was going to be here forever. there was so much to look forward to - all the travel, the yoga, the monsoons, the mangoes, the learning, the discovering, and a re-indianization.

i had constructed mental milestones for the summer - the goa/bombay trip, the wedding, bangalore, mysore, lucknow, and mom's return. mom is back, as of yesterday, and all i have now is a 3 week period before i head back, to a new process of learning and discovering, and other exciting things (including the task of sustaining the effects of all the changes i have experienced in myself this summer).

india, this summer, was life-changing in many ways. if you've been reading my blog, perhaps you can see the changes yourself. to me, it is more an amalgam of sorts, not discrete components i could isolate. life is a package deal, after all.

oh, the unbearable lightness of being

everytime i go swimming i find new reasons to love it, to do more. it's been a while since i swam 20 lengths without touching the fins... (for those of you who don't know what fins are, consider them mini-flippers) and it was beautiful.

ideally, i'd like to be left in the ocean where i can swim and keep my eyes open to the ocean floor. i love looking under-water but all i see is people :(. i'd love to see a mosaic floor, little fishes (with a wall to separate us, of course), or even just little yellow duckies.

for when i lift my head out to breathe, i see the vast blue sky, with the sun about to set. i see the clouds coming together to keep out the sun, and bring rain - perhaps - in due time. although i cannot feel it, i know there's a breeze out there, waiting for me.

swimming is like floating unto the heavens.

the pool, with its water, now splashing, now gentle, ever so blue. and beautiful.

swimming is heaven itself.

correction...

it's like this - when good habits form, they often do as a result of much forced behaviour. we force ourselves to wash our feet every night, until it becomes second nature to us (well, some of us). we force ourselves to floss, until it comes naturally (i'm still failing). we force ourselves to eat aam for dessert until we're so used to it that withdrawal symptoms kill us when the season's over. becoming accustomed is sometimes complicated, sometimes hard, sometimes unnatural... but it leads us to a state where the good things come easy, and oh, what a great place that is to be!

minding the p's and q's

i have grown, over time, to register every element of writing - not only the words and the sentences, but the commas and semi-colons, the ellipsis and the apostrophes, punctuation in totality. i make a good proof-reader as i scrutinize writings with a hawk's eye, noting every use of every word, tending to strip all imaginable redundancies. the exercise is not purely logical, for i analyze the frequencies of words close together, the emotions a sentence conveys, how a sentence is made ruder, and ways to make it more pleasant. all this, incidentally, comes with natural ease.

in this obsession however, i wonder if i have not forgotten what it is to be spontaneous, to let it flow - as they say. does the how infringe upon the what? is something lost while something's gained?

unavoidably. but to what extent, i do not know. now must commence the process of writing for the feel, for the inner consciousness.

world photography day

the world decrees a time and day for everything, i'm glad there's one for photography. thank you a, for the information. i made sure i took a few photos, and of one of my favorite subjects too. i also attended an art exhibit that had some photos (among other art) for viewing. this was all at ihc, where t and i went to celebrate my birthday. she gave me wonderful green presents too :) (i am crazy about green fyi).

all morning i was plagued by a prolonged sneezing spell. it was allergy-related, since an allegra drove it away. by lunchtime i was fine, and ready for photography. at ihc, we met at eatopia - a fast-food serve-yourself restaurant where i treated t to a cheap lunch. after, we walked around to see where rdb had been shot, then wandered into the exhibit. the art at the exhibit inspired me deeply and i was ready for some pictures. unfortunately, soon after, it was time to leave. for it was time to leave for the theater - my uncle, aunt, cousin, dad and i were to see chak de.

the movie was entertaining, surely, but i shall reserve my review for when i've seen the complete version. during the intermission, my uncle was seized by an acute backache that caused a miserable situation at the theater. needless to add, we rushed home so that necessary care could be given.

pain is hard enough to bear. no matter what degrees of pain one might have experienced, one would agree. it is harder still, to see someone in intolerable pain. one is crippled by a feeling of helplessness that won't go away, not until the pain does. for selfish interests alone, i pray intensely for the discomfort to lessen.

i won't belabor more on painful pain-filled thoughts for now. it's time to go to bed, so i can go to the airport at 2 and receive mommy. yipppeee! in the meantime, dear readers, please take good care of all your pains for me. i'll be praying for them to go away. mister god listens to me.

in fact

forget bollywood and movies, i am actually quite happy to switch channels viewing advertisements. indian ads are something else, man. what a creative country this is!

india rocks.

thank you, bollywood!

bollywood produces about a 1000 movies every year. even if the percentage of good movies is small, a small percentage of a large number is still a large number after all. given that we have a history of several decades (less movies were produced in earlier years, admittedly, but still) that makes a lot of movies. and of course, good movies are defined by one's personal thresholds. let's say we go with the 'average' threshold (whatever that may be).

let's get to the point. watching tv these days (especially on weekends) is sheer pleasure. channels there are many, and movies too. one can keep switching channels, finding movie after movie one could consider worth watching. today, for instance, i have seen chunks of jo jeeta wohi sikandar, tum bin, lage raho munnabhai, kuchh na kaho, and kabhi haan kabhi na. given that these movies are each approx. 3 hours, this is impressive, yes? all in the comfortable confines (i love using "comfortable confines". can you tell?) of an air-conditioned room. ah, bliss is this.

a happy birthday

if you read my blog, you know that the plan was to boycott my birthday this year. if only i could've trusted my friends to do the same. not everyone is blessed with friends one can count on. sigh.

although i had (blissfully) gone to bed before midnight (for the first time in eons, on the birthday eve i.e.), the phone rang a few times at 12. although my cellphone was off, some incorrigible (read thoughtful) fools had fished out my landline number and called. by the time i was up to take the call it had seeped into the answering machine. though no one left a message, i knew who it was (but feigned ignorance and went to sleep). of course, dad had taken a call just a minute ago from a 's__' and told him i was sleeping. s has a namesake fairly unpopular at home, and dad thought it was him. he (dad) was thus less keen to wake me up. sorry, s :(.

incidentally, my brother-in-law's brother was visiting with his family (on transit) and we share the same birthday. as host, i felt i had to ensure that his birthday was celebrated, and as guest, he felt he needed to ensure that mine was :). no boycotting there.

the day began with an early morning walk in lodhi gardens. the timing was perfect for photography, with the then rising sun. i took many pictures as we walked along the lawns. they say whatever you do on your birthday, you'll be doing for the rest of the year. i don't think i can go to lodhi gardens for morning walks all through the year, but maybe i'll be happy to just wake up at 6am. and to be able to take pictures everyday would be a terrific bonus. (thank you, god!) (later, s asked me what i did all day, and when i started excitedly about the picture-taking, he said he wanted to know what i did for fun! what a fool :). he has since been educated on my definitions of 'fun'.)

there was a long meeting at ns, for which i spent 2 hours in commute. the meeting was successful, but all too long. it made me all the happier to be back though, in the comfortable confines of a home filled with visitors to play host to. in the evening, we went to ihc for a splendid concert organized by hcl. the concert expressions of the mind had a sarangi performance by ustad sabri khan and his grandson, and then a bharatnatyam performance by geetha chandran and her troupe. ustad ji played two ragas - puriya-kalyan and gaud-malhar (i'd try not to crack my usual joke here, but it was god-level :). it was a beautiful and warm feeling to be in india, in the monsoon season, and listen to a malhar raga performed on stage. it was something else.

the bharatnatyam performance was in 3 parts, spanning patterns of space, of memory, and of time. i loved the last, for it was a fusion of kalidasa's ritusamhara and tchaikovsky's seasons. it was danced without the ghunghroos, which made it all the more fascinating. the coordination was without flaw, the grace unparalleled, and every season portrayed with haunting beauty. i did try to take some pictures, but i am sure they do no justice. if only i could have the auditorium to myself, ask the dancers to pose on demand, and photograph them. oh, to dream!

i ran into aa there. to think i could run into people i knew in a concert in delhi - a city that houses 20-something million. it is a small world, isn't it? after the concert (which had started quite late to begin with, because the chief guest - secretary of rural development - took his time coming), we had a big family celebration in the form of dinner at dilli-o-dilli (not my top choice but the chinese restaurant there allowed children above 18 only. unfortunate!). i will eventually post photos; these still need to be downloaded (surprising, yes) because i'm not really looking forward to poorly shot flash-filled pictures. sigh.

this wasn't all though. the post would be incomplete if i failed to add how my day was filled with loving phone-calls and emails from loving loved ones. i oozed with a feeling that defines warm and fuzzy. so much for boycotting the birthday. so much for counting on friends to do the same.

sigh.

this world...

is the most beautiful world to live in. honestly, world, i love you.

mwah!

the darned shorthand

i cannot handle sms speak. numbers instead of letters, for instance: the 4 instead of "for", u instead of "you", r instead of "are" etc. in fact, i have learned the hard way (over time) to handle each of these in isolation, but the sight of them all side by side is still impossible to take. and by that i mean, quite honestly, my blood starts to boil and my head starts to throb.

know that joke about what the boy said when he finished a glass of orange juice?
oicurmt

i liked that joke a lot when i first heard it. that was years ago. there was no cell-phone in sight, no sms/email/chat. i could take it.

the state today is beyond any tolerance level i can muster. can "wat" not be written as "what"? is that so hard? what about "right" instead of "rite". isn't "rite" a whole different word, after all? i can understand leaving out punctuation - commas and apostrophes - they take some typing overhead. true. but at least one could type out the right letters. it's even forgivable to type extra letters for emphasis, like "hiiii" and "noooo" for instance. but "tq" for thank you is inexcusable. (you! you're reading this aren't you?)

i find, these days, that when i type out full sentences, simultaneously trying to type fast as possible, it keeps my brain active. i am constantly framing proper sentences, at as high a speed i can manage. good mental exercise, and it comes for free. i urge you all to try it, you'll enjoy it - i promise!

please at least just try it. pretty please?
pleeeease?

happy birthday, india!

the 15th of august is always a special day. it gives you that familiar warm, fuzzy feeling within about being indian.

i woke up listening to the pm's speech in red fort. no i didn't wake up in red fort, though i had wanted to go to the red fort, in fact. but dad said it would be really hot and crowded, with much walking to do and security all over. so i slept in, instead. woke up to the sound of mr. singh giving his speech - focused on agriculture and education. heard it not once, in fact, but several times - in the hindi news, the english news, and the urdu news. (i don't understand any other languages.) (correction: i do understand german, but german news in india is hard to come by.)

i wanted to take pictures, dearly. of the flag in all its glory. of women wearing orange, white, and green bangles (like in the tv functions). of balloons in orange, white and green (owg)... i wanted to capture the i-day spirit on camera. so we decided, dad and i, that we'd go to india gate/raj path, and take some pictures. dad had to go to rashtrapati bhavan for the "high tea" function hosted by the president. we found that i couldn't go, because the invite was solely for mr. and mrs. and they would check id. so we decided i'd drop dad instead, just to catch a glimpse of the proceedings outside the bhavan, in the parking lot (which, as you'd expect, is uber-grand).

we started out early, and headed to india gate. nothing in owg except for some lowly kites here and there. raj path was blocked out to all traffic - stiff security. sigh. no luck there. so we headed directly to rashtrapati bhavan. but there was a security guard per square foot. taking out my camera with its telephoto lens could have served only to embarrass dad. so i didn't take it out until he left. then the driver and i tried to figure out a way for me to sneak out and take some pictures of the guards on horseback. couldn't sneak out at all :(. interestingly, we couldn't even leave the premises in disappointment. the security was so stiff, there was only one one-way passage open to the world, and all the cars were coming to the bhavan on it. so i was stuck in the parking lot, inside the car, with guards giving me dirty looks wondering what i was doing there. hmph.

although i didn't get out of the car, i did manage to take some shots from it. they weren't great, but good enough. enough to remind me of my almost close encounter with the president of india. boy, was i happy to get out of there! the sight of all those cars belonging to the diplomats, the bureaucrats, and the politicians was suffocating. all in all, it did (admittedly) feel like i-day though.

i went from there to km, only to discover that it was (for the most part) closed. duh. it's a dry day after all. i was meeting r, d and t - r&d for the first time after their wedding, so i was excited! we went to ccd and chatted for a while. took some photos and giggled a lot. gosh, it felt so teeny. i guess that's how we used to be though. meeting again always brings us back to that state. the other day, a's dad was talking about how, when we were school-girls, we were such a noisy, giggly bunch, that no corner of the house was safe/silent while we were around. and when uncle would finally figure we had vacated the living room, so he could sit in some peace and quiet, someone would invariably appear from behind a curtain or a door. sounds hilarious, but i bet it's true :D.

r also used the word "grubby". she asked me if i felt grubby. apparently it meant hungry. how interesting, but how unpleasant-sounding. it would seem to imply i was in need of a shower, don't you think?

after my daily swim, i called it a day. it wasn't just any old day, but it wasn't very indiaful either (just how a birthday should be). there were interesting articles in the paper - by aruna roy, sunil mittal, and amitabh bachchan - that were worth a read (google for them if you have the time).

india, indeed, is a special place to be on the 15th. or any other day for that matter.

ah, to express oneself

i wanted to write about i-day actually, but i'll come to that later 'cos the pool beckons now. what i did want to share is my joy at having found a new form of expression:
:D

it's awesome. i was happy to have the :), and ;) and :P are cute, but this helps me convey the ever-felt grin in life; the others didn't. i feel free. almost euphoric.

i feel this:
:D

wanted

a font.

i've been creating office documents for a while (mail in entourage, posters in ppt, files in word and excel) and i still haven't found what i'm looking for - a font that i am happy to devote an entire document to - no questions, no apprehensions. i'm not that picky, i want something quite average - nothing too flashy, not too squiggly-wiggly, not too broad or bold, not too tall, not too thin. in fact, i want a font that defines average in every way. but these folks were too good for all that. they don't have a single font that fits the bill. and i've looked through hundreds.

(grumble wumble)

if you think you have the answer to my troubles, will you please let me know?

afflicted

i have the disease of forgetfulness.

am taking homeopathic medicine nowadays, and it needs to be taken in a timely, regular fashion. yesterday was only the second day, and i forgot all about it until dad came home. gosh. today i decided i'll keep the dose (in its little paper packing) on top of me (somehow) when i remember, 'cos then i couldn't possibly forget to take it on time. wrong! it was on me and i forgot for a whole half-hour. i probably need to take medication for forgetfulness, but how will i ever be reminded to take that? there's just no hope :(.

ha ha

why, oh why, do people write "haha" on chat (or any written medium for that matter)?! it's like leaving out the space between two words. i mean itslikeleavingoutthespacebetweenwords. you know what i mean? so please, fix yourself. the earlier the better.