Jaane kyon dil jaanta hai…tu hai to I’ll be alright!!!

Dear Friends…

I am on Pune expressway in my car and writing this…the FM is playing in the background and so as please excuse to find some random lines popping up in the midst of this short essay.

So here it goes…

Friday was an extraordinary day because I met you guys at Sports Bar.

14 years passed since we graduated but it felt as if we were re-assembling in college after a 3-month summer training. The 3 hours spent together were refreshing, really refreshing - I mean it. Everyone was cool, wild and whacky - as they have been since when we knew each other.

(Ghode jaisi chaal, hathi jaisi doom…O saawan raja kahan se aaye tum???)

If somebody had told me in 1995 that I would never work for a single day in advertising and would be working in education 14 years later…I would have smirked. And who would believe that Manish would be managing India’s biggest superstars or that Nidhi would be managing Unilever brands and that Sam would be a Professor of Social Marketing in Canada and that Vandy would be training to become an IB School teacher!!! Coool….!!!

What was even cooler was the fact that there were absolutely no airs or discussions about jobs, designations or salaries. We met like true blue lukkas, exactly as we were 14 years back. Felt like nothing has changed really.

So what did we talk about? Here’s a sampler…

Maly and Manish – The music is so loud…lets get out of here!!!

Tarina – Ninad, you promised me you will name your daughter Taru…

Sam – I don’t like wine…I get a stomach upset

Manash – He he he…look look, Indie has lost his hair!!!

Nidhi – If you have hypertension, then do the Bhastrika part of Sudarshan Kriya with less force!!

Indie – I am planning to write a film script man…magar time hi nahi milta!

Vandy – Sam will look the same like college, if he dyes his hair!!!

(Some relationships are eternal…just like gold – A Union Bank hoarding on the Expressway)

All the girls (should I dare say women???) looked awesome…they were just the same…bubbling with laughter, cracking jokes and poking fun at one. One word I sorely missed from their mouths was “chutya” (I guess that is too much to ask from these working mothers…). I have been married and so are you all but there we no uneasiness in the way we interacted…cheeks were being pulled, hair was being ruffled, hands were being held and warm hugs were being liberally doled out (lucky us).

I also realized that many of you are now at the cusp of something transformative in your lives. I could feel the buzz when we spoke. I felt you guys want to do things that impact your hearts, not your careers alone. Good.

I am always ecstatic at such events, I don’t know why. Nostalgia gets my adrenalin pumping - whether its school friends, college friends, going to places where I grew up, old songs, old movies, anything where my memories are tapped…must be the age-factor.

(Jaane kyon dil jaanta hai…tu hai to I’ll be alright!!!)

Thanks guys for coming and providing your undivided attention from work, family, kids, traffic, deadlines, etc.

You rock.

I love you all.

(Wake up Sid, har dishao se aa rahi hai saada, sun sako agar suno…)

Making Hospitals Kid Friendly

Ira was operated for Adenoids 3 days back at Cumbala Hill Hospital. Here she is seen sitting scared in the waiting area outside the operation theatre. I have never been inside an operation theatre ever. So I was clueless how to deal with her fear. She held Maya's hand to feel better.

Suddenly Patch Adams and Munnabhai MBBS made sense to me.

Why are all hospitals are designed to be patient unfriendly? Infact they are absolutely child unfriendly. There is nothing in there that can cheer up a kid and reassure him/her about the surroundings. The doctors are dressed in green kurtas and trousers with masks on their faces and caps on their heads. They look like zombies moving around.

Worst was when the doctors told Ira that she has to accompany them alone into the operation theatre. Ira's face turned pale and white. I was disgusted with this lackadaisical approach. Actually the hospital staff and doctors were extremely nice to us but I am not sure if they had any idea about the impact their approach is having on a small kid. To make matters worse, Ira was not given even a drop of water for over 11 hours.

Imagine a hospital where the walls are filled with cartoons, there are balloons flying all over, the doctors are dressed like mickey mouses (or something similar) and the kid is playfully taken on to a kid friendly hospital bed? I am sure it can make life a whole lot easier for the kids and their parents.

Kandeel

We met him near Citylight market at Mahim. Everytime we enquired about the "Kandeel" prices in marathi, he shot back in English.

Me: Arre Kiti la ha kandeel? (How much for this "Kandeel"?)
He: Sir, this is 275 rupees
Me: Ani ha? (What about this one?)
He: Sir this is 325 rupees only, which one you want?
Me: Mala neet bhav sang? (Give me the best rate?)
He: Sir, here it is fixed rate.
Me: Kuthchya Shalet Jatos? Kitvit aahes? (What school do you go to? What class?)
He: I go to SIES school and I study in 8th standard. Sir, which one you want?
Me: Tujha photo kadto (I will click you photo)
He: Ok sir...

He reminded me of my own childhood. One of my friend's father used to make Kandeels during diwali and sell them on roadside near Dombivali station. I used to accompany them and stand at the stall every evening. Most buyers felt odd negotiating because of my middle class looks and appearance. I used to end up selling many kandeels everyday.

And all this was done for one Thumps Up or a glass of Lassi that was offered to us by my friend's dad for all the hard work put in!!

Vote

Voted. Nobody seems to be voting today in Mumbai. I went in, voted and came out in less than 3 minutes!! The only queues were that of the slum dwellers - who had come in large numbers. If slum dwellers vote, the politicians will ensure that more and more slums are legalized to protect their vote banks. So ultimately, Mumbai will get what its voters want and not what its citizens wish!!!

The Wait

I saw this lady owner of a roadside eatery waiting at the entrance looking for customers. Somewhere on Goa Karnataka border.

Bandra Worli Sea Link

Bandra Worli Sea Link - Its an awesome piece of architecture for a country like India. Ira was travelling with me and she quoted of of her friend's mom saying that BWSL is a waste of money since it does not save any time for the commuters. By the time she finished...we were at Worli seaface. I told her we have arrived at worli already and she was dumbstruck...

Craig Newmark - The Enlightened Monk of the Internet

Picture Courtesy: Wired.com

Craig Newmark of Craigslist.org - A Classifieds Site. Craigslist gets more traffic than either eBay or Amazon .com. eBay has more than 16,000 employees. Amazon has more than 20,000. Craigslist has 30.

Wired Magazine writes thus about this maverick:

With more than 47 million unique users every month in the US alone—nearly a fifth of the nation's adult population—it is the most important community site going and yet the most underdeveloped. Think of any Web feature that has become popular in the past 10 years: Chances are craigslist has considered it and rejected it. If you try to build a third-party application designed to make craigslist work better, the management will almost certainly throw up technical roadblocks to shut you down.

Craigslist is not only gigantic in scale and totally resistant to business cooperation, it is also mostly free. The only things that cost money to post on the site are job ads in some cities ($25 to $75), apartment listings by brokers in New York ($10), and—in a special case born of recent legal trouble—advertisements in categories commonly used by prostitutes, because authorities encourage vendors to maintain a record that would aid investigators. There is no banner advertising. They won't let you join them, and at this price you can't beat them either.

This is what Craig Newmark has to say about his unique business model:

1. Pretty much everything on the site is based on user feedback. Frankly, I have no vision whatsoever.

2. We really do listen to people. We treat them the way we want to be treated and somehow we built a culture of trust.

3. We progress a little on the slow side. Which means that we may lose some opportunity. But we respond to real needs and try to do real well in terms of helping people out, that seems to work.

4. I remember someone saying market are conversations, and they are right.

5. I get up, do customer service, get coffee, do more customer service, lunch, more customer service. I may go out that evening, may be not, there's dinner in there, then I do customer service, then I might so something else, read or watch television, then finish up customer service by 10 or 11, then sleep.

I was always fascinated by Craig since I was at Harvard where every student on the campus was on Craigslist!! It was a cult thing. BTW, Craigslist is available in Indian cities, but it sucks.

Anyway, I read about Craig again in the latest issue of Wired. I was so overwhelmed by his simple approach to business, something I genuinely believed in. Businesses should generate profits, but why is this race to generate more and more profits? How can you build a business for investors? Business is for customers first and then investors. But investors drive business and business drives customers (if they can't they manipulate) and thereafter customers sideline the business and business loses investors. Its a vicious cycle.

Easier thing to do - Just focus on customers and f... everything else.

Wall Street fails to understand this model. Craig says, he needs no VCs and no Equity. He does not want to make money!!! Thats something unheard of on the Street and in the Valley.

Craig is the Enlightened Monk of Internet. He knows what he is doing, because his business is based on Values, not Vision.

He is far ahead of his times.

Arvind Gupta

Met Arvind Gupta of www.arvindguptatoys.com.

Check the site. Arvind Gupta represents in flesh and bones what a prefect world would be.

Trivial Things

I have got into this new found hobby...photographing trivial/banal/uninteresting things on the streets of Mumbai. I have realised, its real hard work - to make something out of nothing.

Stillness in Chaos

Came across this tired rickshaw puller in deep thought on a busy chandni chowk road.

Ira's first day in IV-C

Ira was concerned if she can get the same class as her friends in IV-C. That was her most important concern for one week before classes began. Unfortunately for her, all her close mates were in IV-B. However, all the close mates' parents felt that IV-C was a better class, since their class teacher was the best. So finally Ira felt good about being in IV-C.

I kept telling her that she is fool to get into all these comparisions because whether its IV-B or IV-C, Maya is going to pester her for studies anyways!!

TAJ!!

This was my first view of the Taj. Taj Mahal.

At the Taj, visitors just go beserk. Everyone just want to picture the monument, nobody is really interested in the history, the sadness that surrounds it.

Taj is like Madhubala and Madhuri Dixit. We watch them for what we see and not what they are.

The importance of Pink Chaddis on Valentine's Day

On quite a few occasions I have smirked at burqa clad Muslim women in India and abroad.

I saw this marwari lady at Taj Mahal's entry gate. I was amazed the way she had hid her face in her 'pallu'(veil). Infact, this pic has been captured after she realised that I was clicking her pic and she desperately tried to see my face but was not keen to lift her pallu. If you look closely, you can observe that she is looking at me from the pallu.

Anyway, I am amazed by the fact that though Hindu traditions are equally regressive as the muslims, especially towards women, many hindus conveniently forget such aspects of our culture when there is a debate on hindu-muslim culture or traditions.

Pramod Muthalik and his goons are no less regressive than the Talibanese who throw acid on school going girls in Afghanistan.

While I am against the excesses done these days in the name of Valentine's Day, beating up women is against the culture of any religion.

The Pink Chaddi campaign - http://thepinkchaddicampaign.blogspot.com/ is a slap on the face of the Muthaliks of the world. Somewhere it makes us aware of the sense of despair, powerlessness and frustration that women (of India) have harboured against (the strong arm tactics of) men. The Internet and the Pink Chaddi campaign has provided that outlet.

Its a shame, that women who are actually at the receiving end (i.e. like the one pictured above) may have no access to internet and fail to participate in this national movement.

Personally, I would have loved to send and Pink Chaddi with a hole it its back side to the Ram Sene guys!

Let freedom be freedom of thought and not freedom from thoughts.

Economics v/s Religion

I saw them outside the Fatehpur Skiri. They were carving 'Om' out of white marble in freezing cold. I asked them, "Why Om?". They said, "Thats what sells."

Economics, if rightly positioned, can win against organised religion based divides, whether Hindu or Muslim.

Memories

Just located them on the disk, pics of my Harvard days. Its amazing, feels like years ago...

The one with Vijay Tendulkar is for keeps!! I attended his lecture at MIT. He was awesome. He said that at the fag end of his life he has realised that nobody has really understood his writing, even his closest friends. He was sad and completely crest fallen at this discovery some years ago during a casual talk with his close friend on his literature. He then got into the habit of checking it with his readers and everytime it confirmed his worst fears! Its painful.

I was lucky to have met him personally. He permitted me to click a pic with him.

Someday I hope to go back to Boston to just hang around on Mass Ave, Boston Beer Works, Harvard Square...its magical!

Dilli!!

This new years I went around Delhi & Agra. 7 days. Clicked more thn 2000 pics. Have edited the better looking ones and am starting to upload in batches from now on.

Delhi is majestic and powerful, but not the one which Sheila Dixit has 'renovated' and that which has won her the 3rd consecutive CM's term.

I am referring to the majestic aura and power of the other Delhi that was built by the mughals and british.

Its big, its huge, yet its understated.

There are no pubs and discos here, but the buzz is infectious. The food is awesome, the paan is worth dying for, there is 'tehzeeb' in the way they speak. The women here are 'lajawaab' and manliness is not about eve-teasing or rape - but about deftly wearing a saree to make a lady buy more from their shop!!

I loved this Delhi, which some fools call "Old Delhi". Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra calls it Delhi 6. I agree. It is actually like a Yuvraj Singh's 6, it makes you feel heady.