India: auto scores over aston Martin !

Jaadoo's tryst with the queen's language

At real Madrid

From dale steyn to jaadoo ! His autograph on jaadoo's photo.

The world through coloured glasses

I am 7

More holi day stuff

Holi hai !

Goose bumps !

That feel is back. Unmistakably.

For many years, I was enamored by songs that set the patriotic pulse
racing. For over 7 years, my mobile ringtone was the indian national song,
Sare jahan se achcha hindustan hamara. Ironically, the poet, Mohammed
iqbal, was amongst the first to float the idea of the two nation theory,
which culminated in the partition of india into two dominions in 1947.

These were also the words that Rakesh Sharma, the first indian national
to go in space, told the then prime minister, indira Gandhi, when she asked
him how was india looking like from space.

The indian national anthem was a daily feature of my school assembly, and
was something I always looked forward to.

It always invigorated, it always charged up the morning. It never became my
mobile ring tone, because I felt obligated to stand up every time jana Gana
mana played, and it was not a great idea to stand up every time the mobile
phone rang.

Jana gana mana, became the reason I started liking rabindranath
tagore, its poet. My none too venerated feelings towards tagore earlier were on
account of my bangla textbook, sahaj path, or easy book, of which he was
the author. I used to barely pass the subject ( most times I failed - once I scored a 0 on 10 in a class test ) when I moved to calcutta in
the 80s, and poor performance in bangla meant missing out on an overall
good rank. This led me to attribute my poor academic performance in those
early days in calcutta to tagore.

Redemption for tagore came when I started loving jana gana mana, a few
years later. That he was the only person in the world to author the
national anthem of two countries, Bangladesh being the other, further
elevated his status in the 7 year old's perception.

Later day controversies, speculation around tagore having written jana gana
mana in honour of the prince of Wales' visit to india, could do little to
diminish my adoration of the song.

The words had always been soul stirring !

Yet today, during a random surfing of you tube, when I chanced upon this
link below, I experienced a very different jana gana mana. There are no
words in it, as It is from a group of physically challenged students, who
use sign language to sing, if I can call it that.
The goose bumps are back, the soul is stirring again.
Have seen this video over 20 times in the last hour, and want to see more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW-tH9Y6nno

Go ahead, help yourself. Feel uplifted !

Bombay !

Standing at a vantage point in life, when i am able to neatly bisect my years into almost equal halves, i find myself back to where phase-II of the journey began.

The 24th of October, 1995.

Just yesterday.

The Bhagalpur-Kurla Express logs in to Kurla station on the day of the last total solar eclipse of the (20th) century and deposits me into Bombay as part of the engineering course technical tour.

That is the time, starting with all that Bombay had to offer to a young student tourist, when a whole new world of places, of people, of experiences opened up.

More significantly, it opened up the mind.

Expanded the notions of possibility.

It was like the whiff of fresh air you experience when you watch this song from the (then) blockbuster Bollywood movie, shot at Kurla station, with a board christening it Vasco da Gama (Goa station).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbQ2F2Wosps

Which other place could have helped me embark on that journey better than Bombay.

Today, as i spend my first relaxed evening in Bombay after decades, i can't but help reflect on the years since that day my train came to Kurla.

The journey from then on has involved a host of people, places and experiences.

Has almost changed me almost completely as a person.

From a shy introvert. From a theoretical idealist. From being judgmental. From a finicky traveler. From being someone with fixated notions.

Seems like big stuff.

Yet, there was nothing exceptional which had happened in that October 1995 trip to Bombay. I went to the Gateway of India. Did a catamaran tour. Went to Taj Mahal Hotel and had the most expensive coffee of my life at Rs. 55. Went to the museum. To the boot house. Toured the aquarium. Juhu. Purchased my first (and last) Nike shoe for Rs 125 at Fashion street (its original, the shopkeeper had told me...i still have no reason to disbelieve). Extensively traveled on the bombay local trains. In doing all that, though, there was a never experienced feeling of being liberated. Of being free. Sans everything. Of having a certain sense of audaciousness. Which, probably, led me to dropping that game changing picture postcard* from a letter-box close to Flora Fountain.

From then on, action has been quite non stop: across countries, across hemi-speheres.

Today, after so many years, and on my nth visit to Bombay, watching all the buzz and energy of its inhabitants around me (despite the numerous challenges that dog them) , i once again get that compelling feeling of possibility. That anything can happen. That lots can be done. That the world continues to be a nice place, inhabited by nice people.

And there is once again an empty canvas in front of me.

I feel good.

Bas itna sa khwab hai.

Jaadoo ji

Sudoku with grand pa

Gandhi ji and his 3 monkeys

Moon at the crack of dawn, over bombay skies

Is it jaadoo, is it Munu ?

Jaadoo with Teddy

Jaadoo at a telugu wedding, today !

Jaadoo starts writing his first book. Bon voyage

A different India

I am at CP (Connaught Place) , almost the centre of the city.
The only difference from the obvious is that this is not Delhi. This is Aurangabad.
I believe that this is an India which i was an integral part of some years ago.
I had my paani puri and bhel, strolled around CP.
Remnants of a rather laidback life, as seen in the Hyderabad of a decade (s) ago, abound. A more worthwhile comparison would be with the Jamalpur of the 1990s, or the Asansol / Burdwan of the early 2000s.

Slowly, the clock begins to move on a fast forward. Someone says this is the fastest growing city in India. In a couple of hours, i am informed that this is the places cars like Audi, Skoda and Volkswagen are manufactured. Some more helpful folks inform me that Aurangabad was in the news some time ago for placing single largest order for Mercedes Benz cars in a single transaction in India — 150 Mercedes Benz cars worth INR 65 crore (USD 13 Million). Without a local Mercedes-Benz showroom and encountering indifferent Mercedes-Benz dealers in the nearest cities of Pune and Bombay, a group of successful citizens pooled their orders and negotiated a record agreement with the firm - directly.
Dinner is at a restaurant called 'Flame n Grill' in a mall called Prozone; a huge mall with the usual suspects.
My host informs me that there is nothing better than a betel leaf (Pan in India) to top up the food with. We drive over to the Tara Pan Centre, in a locality called OsmanPura. The shop specializes in Pans of different kinds, and evolved from a tyre puncture shop by the same name, Tara, in the early 1970s. The shop offers all varieties of Pans, starting from the Kohinoor Pan to the HOneymoon pan to other kinds of flavours like chocolate. Prices can vary too; from Rs 3000 (USD 60) per pan to Rs 10 (USD 0.2). The top two varieties, the Kohinoor and the Honeymoon, are believed to have aphrodasiac properties. The shop is an iconic landmark, to the extent that a local management college even has a case study on it. 'An overview of the management practices at Tara pan Center', by Wisdome institure of management studies, is the title of the case study. It is also available on the internet.

Bharat and India come to life. And in a manner that is Wow !
The tradition of the Pan. Bharat.
The commercialization of education in an MBA course. India.
India does a case study on Bharat.
I'm lovin it.
Viva, Aur-Rang-Abad (town with more colours) !

Friends. Jaadoo, Anish, Dhruv !

A new saga of friendship begins ! Anish birthday, jaadoo's best friend

Meeting jaadoo after two weeks !

Senna

Watched a movie on a flight after a long time last week. The cover of the movie guide enticed me into it. The movie was 'Senna', a documentary on the life of Aryton Senna, the Brazilian F-1 champion. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1424432/
When i lived in Brazil, i used to hear a lot of people say how they loved Senna. I could never really understand why, afterall he had been dead for almost 15 years then. Yes sure, Senna was a three time world champion, incredibly good looking, and Brazilian. Some people speculated about his being gay; most others said they cared two hoots about it; in short, Senna was worshiped, almost as God.
The movie gave a perspective , and also enhanced my understanding about the way he gave a lot of pride and joy to Brazilians. This was late 80s, early 90s. Almost everything that could be wrond with a country was wrong with Brazil. Commonly used words to describe the country were Unemployment, hyper inflation, rogue government and corruption.
And worse, they had not won the Football world cup for two decades.
Senna, through his heroics on the F-1 track, and through his proud display of partiotism, was just the hero that Brazil was looking for.

Even after being the world champion, Senna had not won the Brazilian Grand prix. The way he drove, despite a technical fault in his car, battling severe pain and cramps, through the sheer power of will, to win at Sao Paulo was one of the most emotional moments i have seen in any sport. Everyone at the track, from the supposed-to-be-neutral support staff to the team technicains, was hugging each other when Aryton crossed the finish line. It was more than a race. More than a Grand Prix. It was an event which reaffirmed Brazil's faith in itself. In its ability to overcome the limitations imposed upon itself by others.

Senna fought for the things he felt close to his heart. Very high on that list was the concern he had for the safety of F-1 drivers. The tension on his face, when he was about to start off on what turned out to be the last race of his life, almost reflected an inevitable, forebearing sense of destiny. Senna died in May 1994, and all of Brazil plunged into despair. The roads from Guarulhous International Airport were all choked with teary eyed, shell shocked Brazilians as his coffin was driven through. People cramped for any available space that would give them a last glimpse of the hero, who had provided them with joy and a sense of pride in being Brazilian.
Perhaps, it was the Senna effect which then inspired Brazil to win its first football world cup in 24 years a few months later. And perhaps it was also the Senna effect which brought together a disparate nation to start taking concrete steps to rebuild itself. To move away from being a country of the future that it was always destined to be to a country whose time had come.

Thank you Asif Kapadia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asif_Kapadia ) for bringing Senna's story alive

Pharmaceuticals and our weakness as a nation

For the last few days, I have been in Frankfurt, Germany. This is where i write this from. I am here for work, to attend a pharmaceutical conference cum exhibition ( called CPhI ) which was on this week.

This week, the one which just went by, was also the week when two of the most important festivals in India, Diwali and Bhaiya Dooj, were on.

While most of India was in the festive mood, about 50 people from my company, and thousands of Indians from other, were slugging it out at Frankfurt Messe, dragging their laptop trolleys through the labyrinth of halls, trying to showcase how they were cheaper than the other Indian or Chinese, and how they never compromised on the quality of products.

Indians constitute a substantial % of people attending this fair. Indian companies have been at the forefront of efforts in increasing affordability and access to medicine. They have brought the cost of AIDS therapy through generic Anti Retero virals from USD 50 per patient per day to less than USD 1 per patient per day. The Indian generic industry is one of the most cost effective in the world.

Yet, the guys behind the most important fair in the industry decide that it is 26th of October 2011. So what if it is Diwali Day. So what if for 30% , or more of the participants, this is the most important festival in the year. The time when everyone wishes to be with their family.

And what of the Indian response.
Some minor rumblings. A few companies pull out. Organizers say nothing doing. Dates are dates- they are cast in stone. And what happens: most of the Indians turn up. Indian companies' stalls become bigger and better. And bolder.

That is where the boldness stops.

And our weakness as a nation comes to the fore. Unable to take a stand. Not decisive.
It begins with me.
For all my rhetoric in conversations with whosoever i met, for all my sentences here in this blog, i was amongst the thousands of Indians slogging it out.
On the day most important for my family and friends.

Because we are, generally speaking, spineless. We succumb. We are unable to stand up for ourselves. This would have never happened with people from another country. Let us say, for example, had this event been on Christmas day; how many people from Europe would have participated ?

The optimist in me says this is a sign of India's coming of age in the world economic order. Of not letting minor blips like a festival come in the way of growing business. Of improving partnerships with other companies. Of growing Indian exports.

I can't stay amused with that rationale, though.

And the sadness of missing out on Diwali and Bhaiya dooj lingers on.

Karwa chauth

Hyderabad's multi cultural ethos on display, with burqua clad artists applying henna and giving the choice of Arabic and marwari designs

early morning flight, sunrise view, time to update facebook status

Mani and Vaibhav at Jaadoo's age

Face off, dinosaurs of the past and aliens of the future : jaadoo's armies !